Encyclical Letter

The particular weed in question is called Michael A. Aquino, and of course the following review of this man and his written material should be considered my personal, if indeed well-informed and intelligent, opinion and point of view only.

Briefly, Aquino proudly boasts of a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California.  [Philosophical Degenerate?  Phantom Doctorate?  Phallic Deficient?]  Over the years I have known many individuals who proudly boast of a Ph.D. or even a B.S. in one thing or another while displaying the greatest ignorance of the subject in question as well as many other matters.  The only thing that possession of a college degree means [at least anymore] is that, if it was not purchased, it signifies only that someone attended classes, did at least the minimum requirement of work, then managed to obtain at least a passing grade from the teacher, instructor or professor, and so received a piece of paper suitable for framing to proudly display on their wall to gratify ego.  It means nothing more, and all too often it means much less.  I have a degree in sexology.  I paid $2.00 for it.  I have framed it and hung it on my wall.  It has as much meaning as the degrees most people proudly display, although I would hazard to guess that I put more effort into a study and personal research of my chosen subject than Mr. Aquino did in political science!  And my degree is worth about the same as all of the others - two dollars.

There is a fundamental difference between knowledge and intelligence which people like Aquino seem to be ignorant of.  Knowledge is merely the accumulation of facts [so-called] and as one may have a backyard full of gold and still starve to death for lack of the intelligence require to convert that gold into currency with which to buy food, so too may the man possessing a wealth of knowledge be unable to employ it wisely for his own benefit and the benefit of others if he lacks the required intelligence.  Intelligence, on the other hand, can take a few dollars, invest it, multiply it, and then accumulate enough wealth to not only feed himself but whole nations of starving people.  Whereas the man with knowledge but without the intelligence to know how best to employ it can accomplish nothing of worth, the man who may possess only a little knowledge can yet achieve many things of worth if he but has the intelligence to employ whatever may come to hand.  Naturally the ideal situation is to possess both knowledge and intelligence.

Such individuals as Aquino seem to value knowledge much too highly while displaying the fact that they lack intelligence, thus proving themselves to be but 'beggars' as opposed to 'kings of the earth'.

Michael A. Aquino was once a member of Anton Szandor LaVey's Church of Satan.  Any reader of LaVey's absurd and truth-twisting The Satanic Bible will thus begin immediately to lose respect for the degree of intelligence Aquino would have to possess to join such a thing as the Church of Satan - a degree of intelligence so low that it is relatively nonexistent.  At any rate, LaVey, who has nothing to do with the work of Aleister Crowley, Thelema, et al, as some would have us believe, declared 1966 E.V. as the Year I Anno Satani, the Year [and thus Æon] of Satan.  I do not wish to go into great detail here about LaVey and his absurd ego cult and money-making machine, the Church of Satan, but suffice it to say that it is used as a vehicle by which its members can gratify ego at the expense of "everything that is holy", which is to say the Great Work, and by stepping on whomever gets in the way of ego's desires.  As LaVey himself would be happy to admit, this is 'black magic' and of the 'left-hand path'.

Aquino and some others in this Satanic Church which greatly exaggerated its membership, as usual, had a falling out with LaVey and broke away.  Aquino claims to have "evoked the Prince of Darkness himself" asking the dear old devil to "tell us what we may do to continue our Quest along the Left-Hand Path."  The result of this evocation was the reception of "a document entitled The Book of Coming Forth by Night."  Now if all of this sounds familiar that is due to a lack of originality on Aquino's part.

In 1975 E.V. Aquino declared the Æon of Set - preferring this aspect of that which LaVey referred to as Satan and Lucifer.  Aquino says that

"I was further consecrated as the Second Beast prophesied in Aleister Crowley's Book of the Law #11-76 and in the Christian Bible's Book of Revelation #13:11."

While at the end of Chapter Seven:  Origins of the Temple of Set, a portion of a larger work that he sends to people and from which the above quotations were derived, Aquino writes that

"In a world smothered by ignorant, fearful, predatory, and hypocritical confidence games masquerading as religions and ideologies, the Temple of Set stands alone and apart...".

However, from an objective point of view it seems absolutely no different from the groups Aquino speaks so strongly against.

Michael Aquino also sends out a General Information and Admissions Policies which explains something of the so-called Temple of Set [P.O. Box 29271, San Francisco, CA 94129; (415) 771-9155; or P.O. Box 23821, Washington, D.C. 20026].  Throughout he admits, proudly, to practising 'black magic', being of the 'left-hand path', while also speaking of the True Self and True Will, doing his best to sound very intelligent while ignorantly mixing up inconsistancies.  Black magic and the left-hand path serve ego and lead away from the True Self and the True Will, yet he is essentially saying that you can rise ever higher on the evolutionary ladder by submerging yourself in the primitive qliphothic primeval slime beneath the Ladder of Lights.  Those above the abyss are capable of this, in a different manner, but for those below the abyss this is sheer nonsense.

Aquino employs knowledge to make a good case for Set which even I do not disagree with, for the most part any way, but eventually that knowledge turns upon itself and becomes irrational, as above indicated.

What most concerns us is how he uses and abuses the name and reputation of Aleister Crowley and Thelema to promote his own personal ego cult, the Temple of Set.  And we have yet another abuse of the laws of the land for he has managed to incorporate the Temple of Set as a non-profit church in California [where else!] to receive both state and federal recognition and tax-exemption.  For those of you who do not know this, speaking from experience, having once been employed by a non-profit library association, non-profit organizations are permitted to make a certain profit with which to continue operations and pay employees, and a nice little personal profit can be thus obtained.  Over the past few decades it has become the thing to do.  Want to make big bucks and not pay taxes?  Put together a little organization, call it a religion, meet the relatively few requirements to have it so recognized legally, and then incorporate as a church to receive tax-exempt non-profit status!  Simple.  Too bloody simple.  This has been so abused over the years that it has ceased to be funny.  And lately some groups, mostly fundamentalist [pseudo-]christian groups who themselves enjoy this tax-exempt status, have been trying to pass bills through congress which declare that satanic groups should not be eligible for the tax-exempt status given to religious organizations, labelling very unsatanic systems such as Witchcraft and Thelema, to name but two, satanic.  Fortunately, congress has been too ingelligent to fall for this, if for no other reason than that it would conflict with the Constitution's statement regarding freedom of worship.  However, seeing how this tax-exempt status has been abused over the years I am practically convinced that if we must pay taxes, we must all pay taxes - religious organizations included, without excemption, whether Christian, Satanic, Thelemic or whatever.  Tax-exemption is a privilege and if it is going to be continually abused by people, whether they employ the words "Christ" or "Satan", like naughty children they should perhaps have that privilege taken away from them.  But I digress.

While saying much that is supposed to lead one to believe that the Temple of Set is free from the faults of other churches, Aquino tells us that

"The Black Magician [i.e. a member of the Temple and others of that kind] ... rejects both the desirability of union with the Universe and any self-deceptive antics designed to create such an illusion."

He goes on to say that the black magician does everything for the sake of the "psyche", the "real you", but it is painfully obvious that he is referring to the ego, the 'false self', the persona or mask of That which is the real "real you", the True Self.  Aquino is doing nothing more than LaVey by promoting ego-worship, his own first of all of course! and then the worship of the individual ego.  He is promoting the idea of shutting one's self up in a tower, shutting one's self off from the rest of the universe and the higher, purer aspects of it, from one's own True Self or God Within.  He is thus doing his best to interfere with the spiritual evolution of humankind, thwarting the purpose of Thelema and the Work of the Æon of Horus.  Yet he claims to be not only "the Second Beast", the one promised in The Book of the Law, Liber AL vel Legis sub figura CCXX, Chapter II, Verse 76, and elsewhere, as well as the Apocalypse of the Judeo-Christian Bible, but in a personal letter to me dated "March 13, XXII" Aquino claims to be "the Second Beast 666."

Illogical irrationality rushes madly through everything Aquino says and writes.  He claims to have received the spiritual authority of the Beast 666, without, by the way, providing any evidence to back this claim up, and yet acts contrary to the Work initiated by the Beast 666, Aleister Crowley!  He calls himself "the Second Beast 666", and yet while, as few people seem to realize [amazingly], there is a second beast mentioned in the Revelation of John, one who rises up from the earth to cause the people to worship the first Beast whose number is 666, and while this second beast must be the same as the one promised in CCXX II.76, the Son or Magical Child of the Beast 666, there is, was and can only be one "Beast 666".  Neither the Bible nor The Book of the Law speaks of a "Second Beast 666".  However, Aquino's ego demands not only to be called the Beast, but to also possess the number which can only belong to the Logos of the Æon of Horus.

Another idiotically illogical thing is this business about the æons.  An æon is a period of roughly 2000 years or longer, yet in recent times Charles Stansfeld Jones and then others after him like Maggie Cook declared the so-called Æon of Maat and claim that it either replaces or runs parallel to the present Æon of Horus.  Absurd, but a typical product of ego, for declaring a new æon is the work of a very spritually developed being, which these particular egos wish to be viewed as.  Here we are now only eighty-three years into the Æon of Horus and already Anton LaVey has declared his bogus Æon of Satan, shortly after which Aquino declared his equally bogus Æon of Set, somehow recognizing LaVey's imaginary æon as legitimate.  Do you get the feeling that not only do these gentlemen fail to comprehend the meaning of an æon, but that they have not yet learned how to tell time?  Going back to the Revelation of John or Apocalypse, the end of the world [as John knew it], i.e. the Æon of Osiris, is discussed and the beginning of the New Æon of Horus is explained, albeit very faultily and with now garbled symbology.  There is a hint of another æon of truth and justice, the Æon of Maat, but that is to be initiated only after the present æon has gone the full course of 2000 years or more.  The previously mentioned so-called Æon of Maat [as it is represented by these individuals], the Æon of Satan and the Æon of Set are insanely bogus concoctions of diseased minds and grossly inflated egos that also lack the imagination and originality to invent a more logical vehicle for self-gratification and self-aggrandizement.  You will note that, in imitation of Crowley, Aquino claims to contact a suprahuman entity after breaking away from an organization, receives a very special book and a word, then declares an Equinox of the Gods during which the old æon has ended and the new æon begun.  There is a lot of this going around, such as the various imitation groups falsely claiming to be the O.T.O. [Ordo Templi Orientis], as well as Bertiaux's so-called Franco-Hatian O.T.O., the O.T.A. [Ordo Templi Ashtart], O.T.B. [Ordo Templi Baphe-Metis] and the O.T.D. [Ordo Templi Dianos].  These all represent people who have grossly inflated egos and cannot even think of following another, must play at leading - and if you do not want to play by their rules and accept them as the captains they will pick up their ball and go home - individuals who cannot buckle down to do the work already set forth.  They are lazy and undisciplined as well as ego-centric and ego-dominated.  They lack imagination and originality and so instead of creating an individual and unique vehicle for what amounts to nothing more than self-gratification, they use and so pervert something like Thelema and the O.T.O., copy the life and work of Aleister Crowley, perverting these, all to promote their own petty egos, create personality or ego cults, and achieve their self- or ego-gratification at the expense of things that they easily dismiss while pretending to serve - such things as the truth and the spiritual evolution of humanity.

In a clumsy imitation of "Thelema", Aquino declares the word "Xeper" which he says is

"pronounced 'Kheffer'; it is the Egyptian hieroglyphic term for 'to become' or 'to come into being'."

Thelema [Greek:  Theta, Epsilon, Lambda, Eta, Mu, Alpha], as we know, comes to the numeration of 93 which has many important attributions that you should by now be familiar with, such as Agape [Greek:  Alpha, Gamma, Alpha, Pi, Eta] and Aiwaz [Hebrew:  Ayin, Yod, Vau, Zayin], being the name of A.C.'s Holy Guardian Angel or True Self, the Angel [or Messenger] of the Æon of Horus.  What then of this undoubtedly manufactured word, i.e. a word that in truth comes only from the personality of Aquino as opposed to a suprahuman being - what of Xeper, pronounced Kheffer?  It is common to see an Egyptian word written in English but with the first letter being Greek for the sake of its sound value.  Thus Xeper in Greek would not be Xi Epsilon Pi Epsilon Rho, but rather Chi Epsilon Pi Epsilon Rho, "X" not being the English X but the Greek Chi which has the appearance of an English X but the sound value of Ch or Kh.  Now Xeper comes to the numeration of 790 [600 + 5 + 80 + 5 + 100] which is also the numeration of 'nosou' [50 + 70 + 200 + 70 + 400], a word meaning, according to Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon,

"sickness, disease; a malady, ailment; as a metaph. distress, affliction, evil; disease of mind, esp. madness; generally, a plague, bane, mischief",

and indeed everything connected with the Temple of Set and Mr. Aquino seems to point towards a sickness in human society and the human psyche.  Xeper may also be spelled with two Etas instead of Epsilons [Epsilon = 5; Eta = 8] making its numeration 796, and not only is this the numeration of 'kerasou', meaning "horned", which seems appropriate, but also 'Empousa', the Empusa, being a hobgoblin that assumes various shapes, which to me identifies the devil or demon concocted out of the perversion of the original teachings of the early Jews and other races, most often called "the Devil", miscalled "Satan" and "Lucifer", and which is that demon which is the caricature that today's so-called Christians mistakenly worship as a god, thinking it one and the same with the initiate called Jesus the Nazarene which it mocks.  This "hobgoblin" seems to be a perverting entity that seeks to destroy, through perversion of the turth, all of the teachings given to humanity by the various World Teachers.  Essentially, then, this "hobgoblin" which makes its presence known in the idiotic rubbish that Aquino spews forth is not an individual in itself, but a collection of scattered rags of various shattered egos, that is to say, the demon or devil, the ruler of the abyss who assumes many shapes and forms, Choronzon [Heb. ChVRVNZVN], whose number is 333, signifying dispersion and incontinance [Gk. akolasia], self-indulgence, lack of self-control, what is called in Latin impotentia [Gk. akrasia], implying one who is deep in darkness [Gk. melambathes], a mere qliphothic shell [e lepis], and associated to the evil spirits that were in turn associated with death by the early Greeks, the Keres [Keres], related to the Egyptian god-form of Anubis [Anobis].

The document goes on with many things and, of course, membership in the Temple of Set begins when you send Aquino $50.00 - or $60.00 if you live outside of the United States.

In Category 9:  The Aeon of Horus Aquino speaks of "Aleister Crowley fan clubs" and so forth, giving a list of books which he then comments upon.  His opinion of Marcelo Motta is understandably similiar to mine - but then various types of individuals that would otherwise disagree with one another can always agree upon the absurd madness of Motta, so that Aquino and I basically agree here is no great surprise.  While claiming friendly relations with the Hymenaeus [Caliphate] pseudo-o.t.o. and revealing William Breeze, once of 93 Publishing in Canada, to be the new "Caliph" Hymenaeus Beta, he has much the same opinion of this group's bastard-Equinox III.10 as yours truly.  Aquino does, however, have too high of a regard for The Great Beast by John Symonds and The Eye in the Triangle by Francis Israel Regardie, while naturally taking a couple of pot shots at The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.  Aquino proves himself to be a poor judge of character, however, in personal correspondence and in such things as The Scroll of Set, Vol. XII, No. 5, wherein he states that James Wasserman, once of Samuel Weiser Inc. and associated with Marcelo Motta, and William Heidrick, both presently members of the Hymenaeus pseudo-o.t.o., are both "nice" and "sincere".  It is my personal but well considered and intelligent opinion that they have both proven, over the years, to be quite the opposite.  Of course when Aquino speaks of how the said pseudo-o.t.o. is doing its best, with many faults he enjoys pointing out, to run the group as A.C. had originally intended, and how the membership seems to back up the new Caliph and work hard towards this end, while the facts prove otherwise, we can assume that much of what Aquino says of a positive nature regarding this gang composed mostly of pretenders and wasters, this disorganized 'organization' of freeloaders, it is said for the purpose of 'sucking up' and 'kissing ass', playing both ends against the middle, and so forth.  Says a lot about the character of Mr. Michael A. Aquino and his Temple of Set.

In The Scroll of Set, a little newsletter mailed out to members of the Temple of Set, Aquino declares that

"The 'Crowley legacy' is only a small part of the Temple of Set's range of interests, while it is the 'whole of the Law' for the O.T.O.  At the same time we trace our lineage and authority back through the Church of Satan to the Book of the Law, which places me in the 'wild card' position of being heir to Crowley's supernatural authority ... as the Beast 666."

Again he makes a statement which is quite illogical, does not in the least try to back it up, and simply expects others to accept it as 'gospel truth', which, unfortunately, many may, lacking the desire or ambition to think and reason for themselves.  How, the thinking person must ask:  Does he justify his claim to this "supernatural authority"?  On the basis of his evocation of the "Prince of Darkness" and the book he supposedly received?  Such "authority" is too easily and too often manufactured and means nothing in itself.  As for the rest, it is twisted rubbish.  For one thing, it seems to indicate a connection between the Church of Satan, the Temple of Set and The Book of the Law, and in fact The Book of the Law is opposed to such things as LaVey's and Aquino's ego-cults!

Speaking of The Magical Link, the current publication of the Hymenaeus pseudo-o.t.o., Aquino claims that it is "almost entirely Crowley-rah-rah" while the fact of the matter is that this publication, distributed by an organization that claims to follow the teachings of Crowley, hardly ever even mentions the Master's name, nor does it often discuss anything of importance and is mostly composed of idle chit chat about this or that Lodge, Chapter, or whatever, having so-called initiations which prove to be nothing more than ego masturbation sessions and excuses for partying.

Commenting upon 'sex magick' Aquino says of the pseudo-o.t.o. [as wellas the original and true O.T.O. that he carelessly lumps together in the same pot],

"Sex magic is what Anton LaVey would call a great scheme for getting laid, since your justification is impressively presented to be 'a great mystical awakening or magical Working'.  Thus you avoid the tedious business of trying to concoct other 'meaningful' excuses and justifications.  So you could say that sex magic does work - as a Lesser Black Magical device for getting laid."

This is indeed LaVey's and Aquino's point of view, and unfortunately the point of view, more or less, of most of the wasters who join the Hymenaeus pseudo-o.t.o., but this is not what 'sex magick' is all about.  Before this Aquino, writes regarding 'sex magick',

"Despite a lot of esoteric camouflage, the idea behind sex magic is that if you pork someone while making a wish, you get it..."

Very cute.  Crude, but very cute.  And also very wrong.  It shows that Michael Aquino, like LaVey and most of those who belong to the pseudo-o.t.o. as well as many others, do not and cannot understand in the least the nature and purpose of Thelemic Magick, so-called 'sex magick'.  It has been written of in various issues of The Newaeon Newsletter and the first series of Encyclical Letters and I do not wish to repeat myself here.  Suffice it to say that if employed with the above attitude the best that one can expect is gross animalistic ego-gratification.  There is no "wishing" to this form of magick, but there is "willing", which is an entirely different matter.  Aquino obviously does not understand the difference between "to wish" and "to will", which is generally a difference between the passivity of a beggar and the activity of a king of the earth.  The fact of the matter is that Aquino lacks an understanding of the subject, his ego rebels against the recognition of its ignorance, and so, as is natural, most especially for the egotistical individual, it then childishly and crudely mocks the subject that it cannot comprehend.  Or is it, perhaps, that lacking the 'equipment' to successfully practise this sacred science and art [sacred, not sanctimonious], the very existence of it continually reminding him of his inability, angers and frustrates him and he feels the need to strike out at it with petty vengeance?

Thelemic Magick is, by the way, very much a science and an art [as simple lovemaking should be!] and made sacred by love and purpose.  The exercise of even a little logic informs one that energy is indeed generated through the act of love and since all energy can be harnessed and employed for some purpose it is logical to assume that this energy too can be directed by will, and that is what 'sex magick' is all about.  The problem in this process for men like LaVey and Aquino [et al] is essentially twofold:

[1] it requires an ability to concentrate the mind in a very special manner to achieve samadhi, and that requires real work that such people are unwilling to do as well as a surrender of the ego that frightens the hell out of them;

[2] the successful practise of 'sex magick' requires an understanding as well as a personal experience of a very special kind of love, far beyond the petty avarice and desires of the ego that such people as those already mentioned are incapable of.  Therefore the so-called secrets of 'sex magick' can be printed and spoken of and yet these people cannot employ them, and this must be very frustrating for them, producing a great deal of anger while revealing to them their true natures which they constantly try to hide from, unable to face themselves, revealing the pettiness and limitations of their own egos which they worship as gods incarnate.

'Sex magick' is a Work of the purest form of the Arts and can only be employed to attain the Knowledge and Conversation of and eventual Union with the Holy Guardian Angel or True Self, crudely put, "God Realization", of which the True Will or purpose for existing is the active aspect.  This is what some people call "White Magick", while "Black Magic" is that which does not have this "God Realization" as the ultimate goal - anything which serves the petty and often inhumane desires of the ego or false self.  And Aquino proudly claims to practice "black magic", as does Anton LaVey.

By the way, without the words and work of Anton LaVey and Aleister Crowley, Aquino would have nothing to use as a vehicle for his outrageously inflated ego - he owes everything to these men, although he speaks ill of both and perverts the words and work of Crowley.

I found the first personal letter [dated "March 5, XXII Æ S"] very amusing.  The top half of the stationary Aquino used is a redrawing of the movie poster for Omen III:  The Final Conflict, with actor Sam Neill's face altered to look like a comic vampire.  Aquino believes that he looks like the dashingly handsome actor, when in fact he resembles more a comically satanic version of the Pillsbury doughboy.  It is a gauche attempt to attract attention which again shows a lack of true originality and especially infantile and silly as it takes up half of the sheet of paper!  The signature of Mr. Michael A. Aquino, reproduced at the end of this review of the man and his works, I found particularly interesting.  Capital letters, in handwriting, that are very tall, that is more than twice the height of the small letters, and/or inflated or flourished, indicate a person who is very prideful, vain, conceited, affectatious, egotistical, with a love of exaggeration and ceremoniousness, one who is assertive and arrogant, has a love of luxury and a wish to be admired by others.  There are, moreover, other signs of these characteristics as well as of dishonesty in the signature of Aquino, and it should be noted that the height of the capital letters, much more than twice the height of the small letters, indicates a man with a grossly inflated ego - an ego almost, we might say, insanely megalomaniacle.  This is also indicated by the various things Aquino tells us and expects us to believe.  For instance, he speaks against the spiritual pride of certain types of people and claims to be quite different, and yet he tells us that he expects to be disbelieved and ostracized, obviously revelling in the fact as if this were a sign of his personal divinity, actually accepting this as a sign of that, realizing deep down inside that he can expect no better from others who, even in their dullest moments, for the most part, will see the absurdity of the man.  We expect men like Charles Manson to think much the same way and revel in being hated and ignored.  And again, while he speaks out against those spiritually proud persons who claim to speak directly to God, not the personal god or daemon, the True Self, but Very God, Aquino claims to speak directly to Satan, in the guise of Set, which is merely the very same thing in reverse!  It is worthwhile to note here that Aleister Crowley never claimed to communicate directly with either God or the Devil, except perhaps jokingly with tongue in cheek, but only with certain Secret Chiefs and his own True Self, Aiwass or Aiwaz, which is part of the goal of every being on earth who earnestly pursues the path of spiritual evolution.  The difference is too obvious to merit further words.

To sum up then, Mr. Michael A. Aquino, perverting Thelemic philosophy as well as many other systems to create a vehicle within which his petty ego can ride to achieve self-gratification at the expense of truth and other things necessary to the evolution of humanity, is just another example of the spiritual dis-ease, we might call it, which is infecting human society.  This dis-ease which manifests itself in various forms of pseudo-occultism, pseudo-new age philosophies, pseudo-christianity, and so forth, has nothing whatsoever to do with Thelema, Magick, the true esoteric philosophies and religious teachings in general.  It is all but the qliphothic spillover, one might say, of the true Wisdom that is being poured upon the heads of humanity as an anointing and initiating holy oil.  All of this so-called "satanism", "occultism", "new age" mumbo jumbo, fundamentalist [pseudo-]christianity and TV evangelism - all of this is nothing but the machinations of an abstract force which is called the "black brotherhood", identified with Choronzon and the qliphothic aspects of the human soul and nature, to pervert the Wisdom from above emanating from the True Self and Beyond, in order to constantly inhibit the intellectual and spiritual evolution of humanity as a whole.  For every force that exists in the universe there is an equal and opposite force.  If there is a force which beckons us to aspire to something 'higher', 'purer', above the gross material reflection of Existence, then it is only natural that there should be an equally powerful force that continually tempts us to 'lower ourselves', to drag us down and keep us from aspiring to the heights, from aspiring to reach our full potential and realize our true nature and purpose in the universe.  Mr. Aquino is, halfwittedly, an agent of this, we might say, 'negative force' which tries to interfere with humanity's evolution.

As a final note, having claimed, idiotically, to be "the Second Beast 666" and "#II-76", as he puts it, Aquino says of Liber MLXI:  The Message of the Master Keallach [TNN V.2] that it possesses "some very good argumentative points" but that

"Concerning its final page, I certainly have no grounds to question your personal sincerity.  Such assertions are always made tentatively; their substance is demonstrated or refuted by the test of time (and results)."

In other words, he is diplomatically saying that I may be sincere but I must certainly be mad since the implications of that last page, if true, prove that his claims are totally false and that his whole life is in error, which, naturally, in my opinion, it is.  The assertions made at the end of Liber MLXI, by the way, are not tentatively made - they are certainties so far as the Master Keallach and a select few are concerned.

I pointed out to Mr. Aquino that an ass can claim to be a hawk but that the hawk is known to be a hawk by its "fowl" attributes, especially its ability to fly.  The ass may go on and on claiming to be a hawk until one day it begins to believe the lie and leaps off of a precipice expecting to fly - and of course falls to its death.  Still, in the end, I must agree that only after the passage of time, after both have gone beyond the edge of the precipice to either fly or fall, will anyone know for certain which is the ass and which the hawk.

However, as already stated, the qualities which distinguish the one from the other exist and where one hears only the braying of an ass within the pages of Michael Aquino's The Scroll of Set, the attributes of the hawk are found in the pages of The Newaeon Newsletter and the Encyclical Letters distributed during Periods of Silence.  Within these newsletters and encyclicals corroborative evidence to back up implicated 'claims' by the author, yours truly, exists as a kind of 'proof'.  Such 'proof', however, can never be considered conclusive.  A creature may have feathers, a beak and talons and still not be a hawk.  Therefore only in the end can the truth of the matter be judged and the only real proof is, as The Book of the Law tells us in Chapter II, Verses 42 and 46, success.