The Temple was established in the United States in 1975 by Michael 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.

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.

Granholm acknowledged that it was an "actor in the Satanic milieu" and part of the wider left-hand path group of esoteric traditions.

[17] 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.

[18] 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".

[19] When, in 1975, 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.

[24] 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.

[32] 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.

[34] In 1975, the Temple incorporated as a non-profit Church in California, and later that year secured state and federal recognition and tax-exempted status.

[36] Aquino relinquished his office of High Priest in 1979 to Ronald Keith Barrett,[37] who produced an inspired text of his own, titled The Book of Opening the Way.

[36] 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.

[44] 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.

[46] 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.

[47] 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.

[52] While the Satanic ritual abuse hysteria declined, Aquino continued to be a figure of prominence in "mind control" conspiracy theories because of his career as a psychological warfare officer in the US Army.

[53] In the United Kingdom during this same period, tabloids like the News of the World and Sunday Mirror published sensationalist articles about the Temple.

[59] In that year, Zeena led a schism within the organization[9] establishing her own Berlin-based group, The Storm, which she later renamed the Sethian Liberation Movement.

[9] This idea is in opposition to the traditional goal of Hermetic and Western mystical practices, which is the surrendering of the ego into a union with either God or the universe.

[9] In keeping with its emphasis on the individual, the Temple encourages their members to celebrate their own birthday, and does not prescribe any other calendar of religious festivities.

[38] Aquino later acknowledged Xem as a worthwhile magical concept for Setians to explore, but found Barrett's insistence on its exclusivity as incompatible with the Temple's individualistic philosophy.

This refers to humanity's questioning intellect which sets the species apart from other animals and gives it an "isolate self-consciousness" and the possibility to attain divinity.

[75] Aquino argued that the idea of the Gift of Set was inadvertently promoted to a wider audience in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

According to Aquino, the black monolith which imparts human-level intelligence onto prehistoric apes in the film was a symbol of Set.

[87] Conversely, he used the term greater black magic in reference to changes in the subjective universe of the magician, allowing them to realize their self in accordance with the principle of Xeper.

[91] Aquino also emphasized that in order to achieve a desired aim, the Setian should carry out physical actions alongside magical ones.

[94] All members of the Temple must be affiliated with a pylon, and thus membership is by application, requiring contact with a Setian priestess or priest followed by an evaluation period.

[97] Topics of interest include, for example, animal rights, which was the subject of the Arkte element operated by Aquino's wife Lilith.

[97] There are sections of the Temple known as Orders, each of which focus on a particular theme, for instance ancient Egypt, Norse culture, Tantric Hinduism, or vampirism.

First Degree Initiates who obtain sponsorship by a member of the Priesthood are permitted to attend the International Conclave and Regional Gatherings.