-Caveat Lector-
SFLR News
The newsletter of San Francisco Liberation Radio
Monday, May 21, 2001
San Francisco Liberation Radio, 93.7 FM
Broadcasting 4 p.m. - 11 p.m. nightly, 12 midnight on Saturdays, In
Western San Francisco
In this Issue:
1. The Keys to Hell and Death - Part II
2. O'Brien, Phillips, to Speak Saturday
**************************************************************
1. The Keys to Hell and Death - Part II
U.S. Army reserve Lieutenant Colonel Michael Aquino, a Defense
Department expert on psychological warfare, was named as a suspect in a
child molestation case in San Francisco in 1987. However, formal charges
against Aquino were never filed in the case, known as the "Presidio
child molestation case," in which more than 50 children were reported to
have been molested who attended a day care center on a U.S. Army base.
Aquino is founder of the Temple of Set, a satanic church based in San
Francisco, and he figures prominently in the book, "TRANCE-Formation of
America," by Mark Phillips and Cathy O'Brien. Yesterday we brought you
part one of this report. Today we continue with part two.
FASCISM AND THE OCCULT
The U.S. government's fascination for covert use of the occult has its
historical precedent in Nazi Germany.
Both Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, Nazi SS chief, were heavily immersed
in the occult, Hitler having come into contact with Jorg Lanz von
Liebenfels and his Order of the New Templars as early as 1909.
Hitler became an avid reader of Lanz's magazine, "Ostara," a publication
which "combined the erotic with the occult," while also producing racist
rantings which were "remarkably similar to Hitler's later utterances,"
according to Dusty Sklar in her book, "Gods and Beasts: The Nazis and
the Occult." (Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, 1977).
Another occultist who was influential in Nazi circles was the professor,
Karl Hauschofer, who is said to have virtually dictated chapter 16 of
Hitler's autobiography, Mein Kampf.
For Hauschofer, a love affair with the Orient began in 1908 when he was
sent to Tokyo as an advisor to the Japanese Army.
He studied Sanskrit and translated several Hindu and Buddist texts,
eventually ending up in "the esoteric stream of Satanism, through which
he sought to raise Germany to the pinnacle of world power." (Sklar, p.
63).
(Haushofer wound up being paid tribute by San Francisco Satanist Anton
LeVey, in whose book, The Satanic Bible, published in 1969, can be found
a dedication: "To Karl Haushofer, a teacher without a classroom.").
As for Lanz, he ended up joining the Germanen Orden (in 1912), which in
turn eventually merged with the Thule Society, whose membership, by
1918, reached 1,500 in Bavaria alone.
"This powerful occult circle included adepts, judges, lawyers,
professors, leading industrialists, surgeons, scientists, and even
former members of the royal entourage of the Wittelsbach kings. The
Bavarian minister of justice, Franz Gurtner; the police president of
Munich, Ernst Pohner; and the assistant police chief, Wilhelm Frick,
were active." (Sklar, p. 42).
Couching their rhetoric in rabid anti-Semitism, Thule members prophesied
the coming of a German messiah "who would do away with hated democracy,
the handmaiden of the weak," says Sklar.
There was also a great deal of rhetoric about the "divine self" and the
powers which would accrue to those who followed the true path.
The latter especially is not dissimilar from the sort of mystic
psychobabble which can be found on Temple of Set web sites today.
"Temple of Set seeks above all to honor and enshrine consciousness…"
says the church's official Web site. "The Left-Hand Path is a process
for creating an individual, powerful essence that exists above and
beyond animal life."
Other celebrated personages drawn to the German occult scene included
the American industrialist Andrew Melon.
According to Sklar, "Melon's interest in the occult resulted in a huge
collection of books on the subject, stretching back to antiquity, which
he donated to Yale." (Sklar, p. 138).
Yale, it should be noted, is the home of the notorious Skull and Bones
Society, out of which sprang George H.W. Bush and other American
political figures. (SFLR DJ Scott Thompson has provided research on ties
to Nazi Germany between the Bush family, as well as leading American
industrialists. See previous issues of the SFLR News at the following
links: http://www.firstworld.net/~dove/SFLR_News_7-26-00.html,
http://www.firstworld.net/~dove/SFLR_News_7-23-99.html,
http://www.firstworld.net/~dove/SFLR_News_8-22-99.html. )
So how serious were top level Nazi strategists about the occult, and did
they really feel that use of the "black arts" would help them win the
war?
Again Sklar provides insight:
"The most incredible research of all was set up in 1939 in Berlin. An
astrologer, Wilhelm Wulff, who was made prisoner of the SS and coerced
into working for it, described the Berlin Institute's scientific
research center as being used 'to harness, not only natural, but also
supernatural forces. All intellectual, natural, and supernatural sources
of power--from modern technology to medieval black magic, and from the
teachings of Pythagoras, to the Faustian pentagram incantation--were to
be exploited in the interests of final victory.'"
These paranormal investigations by the Berlin Institute are perhaps not
so very different from the CIA's own research into "remote viewing."
Practitioners of this art, to which the U.S. government has devoted
untold sums of money, are said not only to be able to "see" events
taking place on the other side of the globe, but also to gain glimpses
backward and forward into time.
Self-espoused remote-viewers such as former U.S. Army Major Ed Dames, a
frequent guest on the late night Art Bell radio show, claim to have
penetrated enemy defenses and obtained vital intelligence data in such a
manner.
Dames further claims to have "remote viewed Satan."
Such watery notions might easily be dismissed as the meandering of a
charlatan, however, their psychological value, disseminated as they are
via a nightly talk show reaching millions, cannot be denied.
If after all the CIA employs, as Dames asserts, a secret cabal of remote
viewers, what possible hope could there be for resistance against the
U.S. government--either internally or from abroad?
Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels similarly exploited occultic fare and
belief, pointing to the quatrains of 16th century French prophet
Nostradamus as affirmation of the "inevitability" of German world
conquest.
The end result of all this was a nation traumatized, not so terribly
unlike O'Brien herself was traumatized. Such traumatization had a
powerful impact on the thinking of individual German citizens--even
among those inclined toward opposition to Nazi policies.
Sklar tells the story of a young teacher, the daughter of a liberal
college professor, who joined the party under pressure.
"At first I just made myself do it. The Nazi accounts were so
fantastic--plots of world-Jewry, etc.--that I could hardly keep from
laughing as I read them; but of course I had to be careful. It was
somewhat of a shock to find how readily the children accepted these Nazi
fabrications. But the most amazing thing of all was, that after a few
years of going through the routine, I began to believe the stories
myself and could no longer distinguish in my own mind between propaganda
and truth." (Sklar, p. 111).
ABOVE THE LAW
The connections between Fascism and Satanism are at least sufficiently
pronounced that one Temple of Set Web site, in the interests of public
relations, has even gone so far as to post disclaimers, containing
numerous attempts at "debunking" the "myth" of any fascist/Nazi
sympathies on the part of Aquino or other members.
"I have always deplored its (Naziism's) premises, policies, and
activities which resulted in savagery and misery to a great many
people," Aquino is quoted on one Temple Web site.
However, if the U.S. government, or at least certain components of it,
has covertly embraced the "black art" of satanic worship, how deep does
the affiliation go, and what are the consequences?
Does it, for instance, leave certain murderers and ritual serial killers
above the law in the same manner as the Nazi scientists who were
imported under Project Paperclip?
According to Mark Phillips, who co-authored TRANCE-Formation along with
O'Brien, the CIA began studying occult groups after World War II,
observing especially the impact of occult activity upon the children of
practicing families.
Phillips, who rescued O'Brien from the Project Monarch program, was
employed for many years in the defense industry, particularly with the
Ampex Corporation. As such he was engaged in numerous projects for the
CIA.
Phillips also worked for Capital International Airways, a CIA-affiliated
charter airline service which flew in a lot of the Project Paperclip
scientists.
"The Paperclip scientists were supposed to have been propulsion
scientists, but in fact the vast majority of them were not," Phillips
said last month in an interview with San Francisco Liberation Radio.
"These were mind-sciences people--people who had been involved in the
field of psychiatry."
The very same people, says Philips, who had done the pioneering research
into the field of trauma-based mind control--a field the CIA was eager
to study further.
Multi-generationally-abused children of Northern European families
involved in the occult sciences were the Nazi test subjects, he said.
"This research provided them with extraordinary results," says Phillips.
"They were seeing children who had photographic memories, who had 44
times the visual acuity of an average individual. In other words they
could practically see out of the backs of their heads."
The heightened senses and acute memories were coping mechanisms
developed by the traumatized children.
The CIA, says Phillips, picked up the research where the Nazis left off,
zeroing in on satanic groups in the United States--not for purposes of
halting criminal child abuse, but for studying its effects further.
"What they were interested in doing was introducing trauma into some of
these normally benign rituals that these (occult) groups have or sponsor
at certain times of the year. This trauma was involving blood trauma and
that sort of thing, animal sacrifice. And human sacrifice--as rare as it
might sound and as difficult as it is to prove, there have been many
instances over the past few decades that have been proven," said
Phillips.
He continued:
"But the CIA was interested only in observing and recording the effects
on the ONLOOKERS of these rituals, rather than the participants per se,"
he said.
The families--rather than being broken up and their adult members
prosecuted--were instead studied and tracked over generations. Whatever
crimes were committed along the way, whether child molestation or even
murder, were apparently deemed something akin to a necessary evil.
O'Brien writes in TRANCE:
"Like my father and Cox, Aquino remains above the law."
Indeed, the "black art" of remaining immune from criminal prosecution
seems to have been one of Aquino's specialties, used perhaps with
skilled precision in the Presidio case.
The children at the Presidio most likely were NOT undergoing
trauma-based mind control.
But just exactly WAS going on at the Presidio remains puzzling, mainly
due to the fact that there never was a trial.
So how did Aquino, a highly decorated Vietnam veteran and former Green
Beret, end up as a suspect in a child molestation case?
According to the San Francisco Chronicle:
"In a police report filed in August, a 3-year-old girl who attended the
Presidio day care center alleges that she was molested at Aquino's
Russian Hill home by Aquino and Gary Hambright. Hambright, a Baptist
minister, has been formally charged with molesting 10 other children at
the Army base center…
"Aquino has strongly denied involvement in the girl's molestation,
saying he was 3,000 miles away from San Francisco, attending classes at
the National Defense University in Washington at the time." (San
Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 3, 1987, p. A7).
Certainly it would have been easy for a 3-year-old child to become
confused. But apparently she recalled enough to name "Mr. Gary" and
Aquino as her abusers, and to identify Aquino's house at 2430
Leavenworth St. as the place where the molestation occurred.
Other details were recalled as well, according to the Chronicle:
"The child told investigators that, at the home, she was filmed while
bathing in a room that had black walls and a cross painted on the
ceiling." (San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 30, 1987, p. A1).
The girl also recalled that the tub in which she bathed was a "plastic
lion bathtub."
During the August 14 raid, police found "a dark-walled room" plus
"paraphernalia related to Satanism," reported the Chronicle. (Oct. 31,
1987, p. A1).
The molestations were said to have occurred in September or October of
1986; the girl (who was 3 years old at the time incidents occurred, but
had turned 4 by the time she gave her statements to police), also
alleged that Aquino's wife, Lilith, was present at the time, according
to reports.
The victim's father, also in the Army, said that "four or five times"
during the Sept.-Oct. time period he dropped his daughter off at the
child care center, and that at times he noticed something peculiar.
"The father reported that on two occasions when he picked up the victim
at the end of the day , he was informed by (Hambright) that the victim
had wet her pants…(and the father) was provided with the soiled
panties.'
"But the girl had not wet her pants in a year, the father said. At about
that time, the girl began having nightmares.
"In January 1987, the father learned of an investigation into child
abuse at the center, and he contacted investigators. By February this
year, the child had visited an Army therapist several times, and had
'disclosed being molested.' She blamed the molestations on 'Mikey' and
'Shamby.'
"Events in the following months are not detailed in the report. But in
August, the report says, the girl and her father were shopping in the
Presido PX and the girl suddenly became afraid.
"'The victim ran to (her father) and in a frightened way clutched his
leg. (The father) looked up and saw a man whom he knew to be Michael
Aquino,' the report says. When she was asked whether she knew Aquino,'
she said, 'Yes, that's Mikey.'
"A few minutes later, she told her father that a woman with Aquino was
'Shamby.'
"In further interviews, the girl reported that 'Mr. Gary' had driven her
to a home off the Army base. There, she said, two men dressed as women
performed sexual acts on her and photographed her.
"The girl indicated that a woman, who dressed as a man, was in the house
but was not clear whether she was directly involved in the
molestations." (San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 30, 1987, p. A1).
The Chronicle published a photo of Aquino and his wife, Lilith, on Oct.
31--Halloween day--1987, following what was apparently a press
conference by the couple in St. Louis, where Aquino, according to
reports, had been newly re-stationed.
At that time Aquino said he was a student at the National Defense
University at Fort McNear in Washington D.C. during the time the
episodes with the girl were alleged to have occurred. Aquino said that
participating in the molestation "would have required me to commute
3,000 miles."
In the photo Aquino is dressed in a suit, gesturing to reporters, while
his wife, garbed in dark clothing, looks on with round, staring eyes
heavily lined with mascara.
The release by police of court records only days before Halloween may
have been something of a psychological warfare tactic of their own.
In the wake of the exposures, Aquino filed a $1 million claim against
the city San Francisco, naming Glen Pamfiloff, an inspector with the
SFPD's juvenile division, and Officer Sandra Gallent, as participants in
the raid on his home.
While the young girl who identified Aquino in the Presidio PX seems to
have been particularly helpful to police, many other children, along
with their parents, gave statements.
"One Presidio mother close to the probe…said that young children have
reported molestations in bizarre settings that suggest ritual sexual
abuse.
"From what I've heard, there is a fair number of children who describe
being abused in a place other than the child care center," said the
mother, who asked to remain anonymous.
"'There have been children stuck with needles in various parts of their
bodies, and they have reported people in costumes and robes. It all
sounds very ritualized.'" (Chronicle, Oct. 31, 1987, p. A1).
Temple members, or "Setians," profess themselves to be followers of the
ancient Egyptian god Set, which they view as "the oldest known form of
the Prince of Darkness," and whose worship they trace back to
pre-dynastic times.
As the official church Web site explains:
"Set is a more complex, less stereotypical metaphysical image than that
of the Judaeo/Christian Satan. Satan, the archetype of rebellion against
cosmic order and stasis, may be the symbol for many people's initial
commitment to initiation, but this symbol is too tied to conventional
religions and their moral codes to be an effective representation of the
richness, subtlety, and complexity of the Left-Hand Path."
At one point during the Presidio investigation, the Chronicle obtained a
copy of a 1980 resume of Aquino's, showing the career reservist to be
the holder of a doctoral degree in political science from the University
of California at Santa Barbara.
The resume also states (factually or not) that Aquino has served as a
liaison officer in NATO countries, and that in his civilian life he has
been a licensed securities dealer, registered with the New York Stock
Exchange, and a former employee of Merrill Lynch. The resume, according
to the Chronicle, also states he has written three science fiction
novels.
On Temple of Set Web sites today, where Aquino is referred to reverently
as "Dr. Aquino," can be found lengthy explanations of church philosophy,
including its conception of black magic.
"Followers of the Left-Hand Path practice what, in a very
specially-defined sense, we term 'Black Magic.' Black Magic focuses on
self-determined goals. Its formula is 'my will be done,' as opposed to
the White Magic of the Right-Hand Path, whose formula is 'thy will be
done.' Black Magic is shunned and feared because to do Black Magic is to
take full responsibility for one's actions, evolution, and
effectiveness," according to the official site.
During the Presidio scandal, Aquino, in statements to reporters, frankly
admitted to being the temple's founder--even as it was coming out in the
media that:
* The Presidio investigation had uncovered a satanic link to the case
* Children were reporting ritual ceremonies with adults dressed in
costumes
* The temple's post office box was located on the base
* That one of the victims had identified Aquino in the Presidio PX, and
that additional children had reportedly identified him after seeing him
in TV news reports.
So how did the man at the center of all this controversy escape
prosecution? And how was it that more than 50 children could be molested
on a military base in a major American city without a single conviction
ever being won in the case (the case against Hambright "collapsed" while
Aquino and his wife, Lilith, were never charged)?
Almost immediately from the day the story broke, the Army took the
position that Aquino's satanic practices were protected by his First
Amendment freedom of religion.
"The question is whether he is trustworthy or can do the job," said
Major Greg Rixon, Army public affairs officer in Washington. "There is
nothing that would indicate, in this case, that there is any problem we
should be concerned about."
It was interesting that the Army would take this position with regard to
the top-secret security clearance of a practicing Satanist, while
continuing to exclude gays from even its lowest rank and file positions.
As the Chronicle reported:
"Aquino, a psychological warfare officer who has worked in military
intelligence, holds a top-secret security clearance that allows him to
handle information whose release would 'gravely' damage U.S. security,
according to Defense Department regulations.
"He maintains the clearance even though he has performed Nazi occult
rites and has described himself as the 'Anti-Christ,' in literature
published by the Temple of Set." (Chronicle, Nov. 3, 1987, p. A7).
Nonetheless, Major Rixon believed Aquino's freedom of religion was an
"absolute right."
"To the best of my knowledge," he said, "there is no part of the liturgy
of his church that causes any (security) problem."
This new-found reverence for the constitutional rights of religious
groups was in stark contrast to the government's dealings with the MOVE
organization in Philadelphia just two years previous, and with the
treatment which would be meted out to the Branch Davidians in Waco,
Texas only five years hence.
Nonetheless, the Chronicle would be able to report just over a year
later:
"Investigators have thus far been frustrated in their efforts to
prosecute the molesters." (Chronicle, Dec. 24, 1988, p. A2).
Hambright was indicted twice on federal charges, "but each time the
prosecution collapsed because the children were so young and the
evidence often so vague," said the Chronicle.
The U.S. Attorney in San Francisco at the time was Joseph P.
Russoniello--who would later be mentioned in the "Dark Alliance" series
on Contra cocaine smuggling. That series was produced by reporter Gary
Webb in the San Jose Mercury News in 1996.
In the series Webb reports of a 1988 Senate subcommittee investigation
which ran into a "wall of secrecy at the Justice Department."
In that case, says Webb, Senate investigators were trying to determine
why Russoniello "had given $36,000 back to a Nicaraguan cocaine dealer
arrested by the FBI."
In the child molestation case, Presidio parents were reported, by August
of 1987, to be "edgy and upset by the reluctance of the Army, FBI, and
(Russoniello's) office in San Francisco" to discuss details of the case.
One woman told the Chronicle that FBI agents never interviewed her--even
after a doctor confirmed that her son had been molested.
A federal judge (who was not named in the report) ruled that "key
testimony was hearsay and could not be used as evidence," said the
Chronicle.
Two arson fires destroyed a building adjacent to the day care
center--one on Sept. 22, 1987, and the other on Oct. 13.
And on November 20, the center was formally closed.
U.S. Rep. Barbara Boxer called the school closing "a blessing."
The San Francisco District Attorney's office apparently didn't make any
more headway in the case than did the U.S. attorney, saying there was
"insufficient evidence" to pursue it.
"District Attorney Arlo Smith's decision to close the book on off-base
molestation ends the criminal case," the Chronicle reported (Aug. 2,
1988, p. A6).
A bid by Aquino to have court martial charges pressed against the 3 year
old girl's father--for making "false allegations" against him--was
unsuccessful.
Aquino nonetheless vowed to press ahead with his case--"all the way to
the White House," if necessary.
****************************************************
2. Phillips, O'Brien to Speak Saturday
Mark Phillips and Cathy O'Brien will speak Saturday in a program
entitled "Mind Control, the Media & the CIA," a benefit for San
Francisco Liberation Radio.
The program will take place Saturday, May 26, at the First Unitarian
Church, 1187 Franklin St. at Geary, starting at 7:30 p.m.
Phillips and O'Brien are authors of the book, TRANCE-Formation of
America, documenting O'Brien's life experience as a mind-control victim
of the U.S. government's Project Monarch program.
A $10 - $15 donation is requested. For information call 415-386-3135.
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