Path: shell.portal.com!svc.portal.com!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!news-feed-1.peachnet.edu!news.duke.edu!hookup!olivea!news.hal.COM!halsoft.com!netcomsv!sacbbx!astaroth!125-430!michael.aquino
From: Michael.Aquino@125-430.astaroth.sacbbx.com (Michael Aquino)
Date: 14 Nov 94 07:39:31 
Newsgroups: alt.satanism
Subject: Re: A Challenge to Most of You :
Message-ID: <470_9411150531@astaroth.sacbbx.com>
X-FTN-To: Meinkmpf
Lines: 37

Mei> And Aquino is still pissed and trying to prove that Set is better than
Mei> Satan, and that whatever line needs to be fed to the masses needs to come
Mei> from Only Him or it's shit. Well, news flash, Mikey, IT'S ALL SHIT, yours
Mei> especially, since even you don't believe your line. You just NEED so
Mei> badly to be better than LaVey. I don't see him here blathering. (And
Mei> don't bother to flame back that that is what he has me for, because I
Mei> don't do it either.)

I think it's reasonably evident to an intelligent person that Set and Satan
are significantly distinct beings/concepts/philosophical models. I do
maintain, and I believe reasonably, that "Satan" is a negative corruption of
Set, engineered by Judaeo/Christianity for propaganda purposes - and that
"positive" Satanism existed - as in the 66-75 period - in spite of this
handicap, not because of it. The whole game being out in the open since 1975,
so to speak, I think that persons with a sincere, positive interest in the
best of what "Satanism" represented should indeed be Setians, and that persons 
who cling to the Judaeo/Christian propaganda image of "Satan", particularly in 
a time of increasing fundamentalist extremism & activism, are either
self-destructive or naive.

Nor am I in personal competition with Anton LaVey. As anyone who has known
both of us is well-aware, we are markedly different types of individuals, with 
[at least after 1975] diametrically divergent goals and measurements of
satisfaction & success. He is desperate for self-advertisement, so much so
that he feels it necessary to construct the most absurd fake persona for
himself, and to use the "Church of Satan" as nothing more than a vehicle for
self-promotion.

You simply won't find that in the Temple of Set, which all of its Initiates
understand & operate as a collective, cooperative environment. I'm pleased and 
proud of it, and what I have contributed to it, but part of what makes it
successful is precisely that it is *not* M.A.-centered or -dependent. Rather
it is a device which "centers" around each and every individual Setian, which
I submit is what a truly Setian institution *must* do.

Since you've brought it up, I would be happy to see Anton here on this
newsgroup, speaking for himself. Why don't you invite him to do so?