The Temple of Set (ToS) is an occult religious organization founded in 1975. A new religious movement and form of Western esotericism, the Temple espouses a religion known as Setianism, whose practitioners are called Setians. This is sometimes identified as a form of Satanism.
The Temple was established in the United States in 1975 by Michael A. Aquino, an American political scientist, military officer, and a high-ranking member of Anton LaVey's Church of Satan. Dissatisfied with LaVey's materialistic approach, abolition of regional groups, and commercialization of Church degrees, Aquino resigned and—according to his own claim—embarked on a ritual to invoke Satan, who revealed to him a sacred text called The Book of Coming Forth by Night. According to Aquino, in this work Satan revealed his true name to be that of Set, which had been used by his followers in ancient Egypt. Aquino was joined in establishing the Temple by a number of other dissatisfied members of LaVey's Church, and soon various Setian groups were established across the United States.
Setians believe that Set is the one real god and that he has aided humanity by giving them a questioning intellect, the "Black Flame", which distinguishes them from other animal species. Set is held in high esteem as a teacher whose example is to be emulated, but he is not worshipped as a deity. Highly individualistic in basis, the Temple promotes the idea that practitioners should seek self-deification and thus attain an immortality of consciousness. Setians believe in the existence of magic as a force that can be manipulated through ritual; however, the nature of these rituals is not prescribed by the Temple. Specifically, Aquino described Setian practices as "black magic", a term which he defines idiosyncratically.
Following initiation into the Temple, a Setian can proceed along a series of six degrees, each of which requires greater responsibilities to the group; as a result, most members remain in the first two degrees. Governed by a high priest or high priestess and a wider Council of Nine, the Temple is also divided into groups known as pylons, through which Setians can meet or correspond in order to advance their magical work in a particular area. Pylons of the Temple are now present in the United States, Australia, and Europe, with estimates placing the Temple's average membership at 500.
Definition
The Temple of Set is a new religious movement, and draws upon earlier forms of Western esotericism. Among academic scholars of religious studies, there has been some debate as to whether the Temple of Set can be characterized as "Satanism" or not. The religious studies scholars Asbjorn Dyrendal, Massimo Introvigne, James R. Lewis, and Jesper Aa. Petersen describe the Temple of Set as a Satanic group, despite its reluctance to use the term "Satanism", because it is an offshoot of the Church of Satan which continues to use satanic mythology. Conversely, the scholar Kennet Granholm argued that it should not be considered a form of Satanism because it does not place an emphasis on the figure of Satan. Granholm acknowledged that it was an "actor in the Satanic milieu" and part of the wider left-hand path group of esoteric traditions. He suggested that it could also be seen as a form of "Post-Satanism", thereby continuing to reflect its historical origins within religious Satanism.
The Temple of Set is far more rooted in esoteric ideas than the Church of Satan had been. It has thus been termed "Esoteric Satanism", a term used to contrast it with the "Rational Satanism" found in LaVeyan Satanism. Accordingly, it has been labelled the "intellectual wing of esoteric Satanism", with the Temple presenting itself as an intellectual religion. Aquino possessed a Ph.D. in political science and this formal education was reflected in the way that he presented his arguments, in which he draws broadly upon Western philosophy and science.
History
Foundation
Born in 1946, Michael A. Aquino was a military intelligence officer specializing in psychological warfare. In 1969 he joined Anton LaVey's Church of Satan and rose rapidly through the group's ranks. In 1970, while he was serving with the U.S. military during the Vietnam War, Aquino was stationed in Bến Cát in South Vietnam when he wrote a tract titled "Diabolicon" in which he reflected upon his growing divergence from the Church of Satan's doctrines. In this tract, teachings about the creation of the world, God, and humanity are presented, as is the dualistic idea that Satan complements God. The character of Lucifer is presented as bringing insight to human society, a depiction of Lucifer that was inherited from John Milton's seventeenth-century epic poem Paradise Lost. By 1971, Aquino was ranked as a Magister Caverns of the IV° within the Church's hierarchy, was editor of its publication The Cloven Hoof, and sat on its governing Council of Nine. In 1973, he rose to the previously unattained rank of Magister Templi of IV°. According to Satanism scholars Per Faxneld and Jesper Petersen, Aquino had effectively become LaVey's "right-hand man".
Nonetheless, there were things that Aquino disliked about the Church of Satan; he thought that it had attracted many "fad-followers, egomaniacs, and assorted oddballs, whose primary interest in becoming Satanists was to flash their membership cards for cocktail-party notoriety". In 1975, when LaVey abolished the system of regional groups, or grottos, and declared that in the future all degrees would be given in exchange for financial or other contributions to the Church, Aquino became increasingly disaffected; he resigned from the organization on June 10, 1975. While LaVey seems to have held a pragmatic and practical view of the degrees and of the Satanic priesthood, intending them to reflect the social role of the degree holder within the organization, Aquino and his supporters viewed the priesthood as being spiritual, sacred and irrevocable. Dyrendal, Lewis, and Petersen describe Aquino as, in effect, accusing LaVey of the sacrilege of simony.
Aquino then provided what has been described as a "foundation myth" for his Setian religion. Having departed the Church, he embarked on a ritual intent on asking Satan for advice on what to do next. According to his account, at Midsummer 1975, Satan appeared and revealed that he wanted to be known by his true name, Set, which had been the name used by his worshippers in ancient Egypt. Aquino produced a religious text, The Book of Coming Forth by Night, which he alleged had been revealed to him by Set through a process of automatic writing. According to Aquino, "there was nothing overtly sensational, supernatural, or melodramatic about The Book of Coming Forth By Night working. I simply sat down and wrote it." The book proclaimed Aquino to be the Magus of the new Aeon of Set and the heir to LaVey's "infernal mandate". Aquino later stated that the revelation that Satan was Set necessitated his own exploration of Egyptology, a subject about which he had previously known comparatively little.
Aquino's Book of Coming Forth by Night makes reference to The Book of the Law, a similarly revealed text produced by the occultist Aleister Crowley in 1904 which provided the basis for Crowley's religion of Thelema. In Aquino's book, The Book of the Law was presented as a genuine spiritual text given to Crowley by preternatural sources, but it was also declared that Crowley had misunderstood both its origin and message. In making reference to The Book of the Law, Aquino presented himself as being as much Crowley's heir as LaVey's, and Aquino's work would engage with Crowley's writings and beliefs to a far greater extent than LaVey ever did.
In establishing the Temple, Aquino was joined by other ex-members of LaVey's Church, and soon Setian groups, or pylons, were established in various parts of the United States. The structure of the Temple was based largely on those of the ceremonial magical orders of the late nineteenth century, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Ordo Templi Orientis. Aquino has stated that he believed LaVey was not merely a charismatic leader but had actually been appointed by Satan himself (referring to this charismatic authority as the "Infernal Mandate") to found the Church. After the split of 1975, Aquino believed LaVey had lost the mandate, which the "Prince of Darkness" then transferred to Aquino and a new organization, the Temple of Set. According to both the historian of religion Mattias Gardell and journalist Gavin Baddeley, Aquino displayed an "obsession" with LaVey after his departure from the Church, for instance by publicly releasing court documents that reflected negatively on his former mentor, among them restraining orders, divorce proceedings, and a bankruptcy filing. In turn, LaVey lampooned the new Temple as "Laurel and Hardy's Sons of the Desert". In 1975, the Temple was incorporated as a non-profit Church in California, and later that year secured state and federal recognition and tax-exempt status.
Later development
Many members of the Temple had voiced their opposition to Aquino's position of power within it. Aquino relinquished his office of High Priest in 1979 to Ronald Keith Barrett, who produced an inspired text of his own, titled The Book of Opening the Way. Barrett's approach was later criticized as "more mystical than magical" by Temple members. Barrett's leadership was also criticized as authoritarian, resulting in a decline in the Temple's membership. Barrett resigned his office and severed ties with the organization in May 1982. He subsequently established his own Temple of Anubis, which he led until his 1998 death; it survived until the early 2010s. After Barrett's departure, Aquino retook leadership of the Temple of Set. During this period, the sociologist Gini Graham Scott clandestinely participated in the Temple, using her observations as the basis for her 1983 book The Magicians: A Study of the Use of Power in a Black Magic Group.
After receiving his PhD in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1980, Aquino worked as an adjunct professor at Golden Gate University until 1986 while continuing to serve in the United States Army as an Active Guard Reserve officer at the Presidio of San Francisco. He was fascinated by the connections between occultism and Nazism, which led to accusations that he was sympathetic to Nazi ideology. In 1983, he performed a solitary rite at Walhalla, the subterranean section of the Wewelsburg castle in Germany that was utilized as a ceremonial space by the Schutzstaffel's Ahnenerbe group during the Nazi period. This resulted in his formation of the Order of the Trapezoid, lifting the name directly from the early governing body of the Church of Satan to repackage it as a Setian version whose members considered themselves a chivalric order of knights. From 1987 through to 1995, the Grand Master of the Order of the Trapezoid was Edred Thorsson, who had joined the Temple of Set in 1984 and risen to the Fifth Degree in 1990. Thorsson exerted a "discernible influence" over the Setian community through his books, in which he combined aspects of Satanic philosophy with the Modern Pagan religion of Heathenry. In 1980, he founded the Texas-based Rune-Gild The Ring of Troth, which shared many of the Temple's key philosophical tenets but with a focus on the study of runes and their applications in magical practice.