Duncan Trussell Family Hour - Hail Satan! with Lucien Greaves

Episode Date: February 13, 2016

Lucian Greaves, the leader of the SATANIC TEMPLE, joins the DTFH and we talk about satanism and the importance of the separation of Church and State.   THE SATANIC TEMPLE LUCIEN ON TWITTER PETITION ON CHANGE.ORG  RAM DASS SPRING RETREAT

Hello, friends. It's me, Duncan Trussell, and this is a particularly satanic episode of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour Podcast, because today's guest is the illustrious leader. I don't even know if illustrious is the right word for him, actually. He's a pretty modest, humble, awesome dude who happens to be the leader of the satanic temple. In which if you've been following the news, you know that the satanic temple is the poisoned briar in the suckered tentacle of the religious right that so desperately wants to entwine the government of the United States of America with their fear-ridden, apocalyptic interpretation of the Bible. And the satanic temple is always getting in their way, and they're doing this generally in

the most hilarious and brilliant of ways. A second group has now filed a lawsuit over the Ten Commandments Monument at Oklahoma State Capitol. American atheists incorporated, and two of its Oklahoma members say the monument is a state-sponsored endorsement of religion which makes it unconstitutional. A similar lawsuit is already pending in the courts. Some religious groups say if there is a Christian monument they want one too. The satanic temple has even submitted a plan to build this statue of Satan on Capitol grounds. In case somehow you missed this news story to sum it up, the satanic temple wanted to put a statue of Baphomet next to an old, musty statue of the Ten Commandments that had been sitting in front of the Oklahoma City Capitol building for a very long

time. The satanic temple did not try to have the statue of the Ten Commandments removed, they simply wanted their religion to be represented in Oklahoma City. The idea being that if you're going to have a separation of church and state and you're still going to put religious symbols in state houses, then that means you have to represent all the symbology of any religion that wants to be represented. Now a lot of Christians don't like this idea. They don't want to be inclusive. This might come as shocking news to many of you, but there are a lot of Christians out there who believe that their religion is the only path to God and many of those Christians are seeking to become president of the United States and to control the largest nuclear arsenal

in the world. Now I tried to record a rant detailing just how awful it is to have a government that is being run by fundamentalist, apocalyptic, God-fearing doomsayers, but I realized that it would be far more effective if I just put together some kind of sound montage, which I spent the last several hours doing and I'm going to play it for you now. No, this is an important question. In fact, this is the most important question that I ask any candidate who's running for political office, and that is this. How important is it for the president of the United States to fear God? And what does that mean to you? Any president who doesn't begin every day on his knees isn't fit to be commander-in-chief of this country. Homosexual sin is nothing more or nothing less

than a perverse sexual act or acts. It is no more than that. It is no less than that. Most importantly, I brought my Bible. Okay? Someone called and said, is Pokemon demonic? The answer to that is yes, they are all oriental demons. Yeah. And as you read in the Pokemon, in order for Pokemon to advance in power, it has to evolve to another level, and each evolution becomes more demonic in appearance. Far from reflecting hostility toward religion, our faith-filled founders knew that faith was not just an essential element, but the essence of civilization and the inspiration for our culture. We believe that God listens to the voice of his children and pours his grace upon those who seek

him in prayer. About parents who beat their child to death in the name of God. They believe the Bible requires them, requires them to spank their kids with items like belts and rods in order to train them to be well-behaved happy kids. These parents appeared to have been following the teachings of a Christian parenting book called To Train Out a Child, the book that is growing popularity around the world. Any president who doesn't begin every day on his knees isn't fit to be commander in chief of this country. We recommend a three-eighths inch dowel that you can buy at any hardware store, and you can cut it. You come in three-foot lengths, so you can cut it into two at 18 inches and they're flexible, so when you bend them, they will bend, and they're about as big as my

little finger, and so those three-eighths inch dowels are, they don't damage. In other words, if you hit the wrong spot, they wouldn't damage, but they do sting like crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. These are strange times we live in, friends. The dark weed of religious fundamentalism is always attempting to work its way into the White House, and you need people from all walks of life to do whatever it takes to trim that weed and to keep it from gaining any more power than it already has, and this is why I like the Satanic Temple. I don't identify as a Satanist. I'm not really sure what I identify as, but I can say this. Some of my dearest friends are Satanists, and I've had a lot of fun hanging out with them.

I think that Satanism, particularly the sort of Satanism that Lucian Greaves teaches us, is a beautiful thing, a kind of palate cleanser. If you're one of the millions of people who was blasted out of a vagina into a family where your poor little baby brain was getting filled with these terrible ghost stories about an invisible, homophobic, angry God who inexplicably, simultaneously loved you, and yet watched everything that you did and took note of everything you did, because if you didn't offer your soul up to him or offer your soul to Jesus, he was going to throw you in a lake of fire for infinity. Now, when you hear that story, it seems absolutely absurd, but if you're a kid, you've got no immune system for that, especially when the story is coming

from the same people who are teaching you how to eat, poop, walk, and talk. There's no way that you can fight it off, and so Satanism can be a lovely palate cleanser for you if you need to purify yourself of the ghosts of the apocalyptic version of Christianity that so many people are currently haunted by. I'm not going to keep on rambling because we've got a nice long conversation coming up with Lucian Greaves, but if you want more information about the Satanic Temple, I will have links at DuncanTrossell.com so you can go there and check them out. I'm actually going to some kind of Satanic ritual tonight thanks to Lucian Greaves, and I'm quite excited about it. All right, we're going to jump right into this podcast, but first, some very quick business.

Aloha, friends. Want to do something crazy? Why don't you join me in Hawaii for the Ram Dass Springer Tree? It's May 4th through 9th, and this isn't like your normal spiritual retreat. You're not going to get attacked by lions. You won't be spanked by hooded monks with red fingernails and chicken feet. This is just a relaxing time at a beautiful resort in Hawaii that serves some of the greatest Mai ties of all time and has some fantastic snorkeling, and it's one of my favorite things to do ever. So if you feel like going to Hawaii, it's a pretty good deal, especially if you share a room with somebody. I think it's like 2200 bucks, and that includes all meals, room and board, and a lot of great spiritual teachings from some of my teachers,

including Ram Dass and Lamasuri Dass. Many of these folks you've heard on the podcast, it's just a blast, and here's the thing. If you find yourself bristling at the overwhelming good vibes and all the lovey-dovey hippies, you can always retreat to the wonderful Mai Tai Bar and get hammered for the entire retreat while still enjoying the delicious food that they offer. There's also an ocean right in front of the resort, so if you don't want to listen to enlightened people, yapp about God, you can swim through the coral reefs and watch sea turtles frolic. It's a blast. I hope to see you there. If you're interested, go to ramdass.org. There's also going to be a link at dunkintrustle.com in the comment section of this podcast.

Zika virus, the Christian rite, jaguars, a man was just killed by a meteor. These are the things that are happening in the world today. Did you hear about this? A bus driver just having a regular day was obliterated by a stone that fell from the sky. Yes, it's dangerous to go outside, which is why it's important to use amazon.com. If you're going outside, if you're risking your life in this deadly, broiling cauldron of fangs and meteors and mosquitoes and cosmic rays, then you better be out there making love to your sweet darling. You better be in some forest clearing covered with flowers and having shuttering tantric orgasms as you ejaculate or blast your love fluid into the foliage and on the hummingbirds flying by to watch as you writhe and moan in the

sweet forest floor. You shouldn't be in traffic. You should be getting fisted or fisted in some beautiful sweet meadow and the verdant hills of wherever you happen to live. Don't spend your life stuck in traffic going to buy Windex when you could simply go to amazon.com and have it delivered to your house. And if you're going to go to amazon.com, won't you please penetrate our portal, which is located in the comment section of any of these episodes. All you got to do is click on the amazon portal and anything that you purchase, they will give us a very small percentage of and it costs you nothing. It's a fantastic way for you to support this podcast and also a fantastic way to protect you and your family from falling space debris. Go to amazon.com, won't you? But go through

our portal first. There's also other ways to support this podcast. We've got a lot of great t-shirts, posters and stickers located at dunketrustle.com. We also have mugs. So if you want to get some really cool merchandise, it's all there for you. Also, thank you to those of you who have been donating to the podcast. One super cool thing you can do if it strikes your fancy and obviously you don't have to do it. But if you want to support this podcast and get really hardcore, you can go through PayPal and sign up for a monthly subscription where they will, you could donate a dollar or two dollars a month, whatever it may be. You don't have to do this. I'm just happy that you're listening to the show. That blows my mind. But if you feel like contributing, we certainly

will accept it. Finally, I'm going on tour, a giant bus tour. It's coming up and all those dates is going to start at the very end of March and goes all the way through April. I'm going to be in Asheville. I'm going to be in Boston. I'm going to be in Philadelphia. I'm going to be in Toronto and many, many, many, many, many other spots. If you're interested in seeing whether or not I'm coming through your town, go to dunketrustle.com and scroll down. All the dates are there. All right, friends, let's get this show on the road. Today's guest is the leader of the Satanic Temple. And they've recently been doing a lot of amazing work in Phoenix, as well as in other parts of the world. If you're interested in connecting with Lucian

Greaves, I will have all the links you need to find them located in the comments section of this episode. And now everybody, please get those pineal glands of squirtin' and spray out as much Satanic love energy as you can in the direction of today's guest, Lucian Greaves. Lucian Greaves, welcome back to the Dunkin' Trustle family, our podcast. I'm so grateful that you decided to spend some time with me on the show this evening. Any time. So can you please just give my listeners an update on what has happened in Phoenix specifically? What has happened to the Phoenix City Council's 60-year-old tradition of saying a prayer before they get into politics?

65-year, I think they kept saying. They would open up their city council meetings with a public prayer, an invocation. And naturally, these were usually Christian invocations. They gave themselves a lot of credit for allowing a seek to give an invocation. And I guess at one point, an atheist did also to their credit. A secular humanist, a very sweet-older lady gave it. I saw the prayer. It was really good. Diane Post, who has some relationship with the Freedom from Religion Foundation. But of course, the Satanic Temple coming in and asking to deliver an invocation as well is always the true test of pluralism and First Amendment rights. And you can see that, although they credit themselves for allowing this so-called diversity of voices before,

they think that they only do so at their own tolerance, that it's by their largesse that anybody is allowed there at all. And they don't really seem to understand the real situation in that if you open up the public forum to one religious voice, you have to be prepared to open them, open the forum to everybody. So Phoenix City Council for 65 years has been doing some form of invocation. And the Satanic Temple came in and said, and you guys said that you wanted to do a two-minute invocation prior to one of their meetings. And what was the result? Well, the backlash was immediate. And by Friday of the week that we had released our press release saying that we were going to do this, because that was the interesting part. Our people in Arizona

had filed to do this sometime back in December. And I guess it went unnoticed. They approved us. And it wasn't until much later, earlier this month when we put out a press release saying that we were going to do this invocation, that all of a sudden all chaos broke loose. And there was a complete meltdown of Phoenix. Council members started screaming holy terror and demanding that we be blocked and the whole thing be shut down. And they added some kind of emergency items to their meeting of February 3rd, where they were going to consider options by which they could try to legally block us from giving the invocation. So they were trying to think of ways to keep us out. And one of the ways that they had contrived was that they wanted to put in a local

standard by saying that anybody who was going to give an invocation in Phoenix needed to be a resident of Phoenix. And the people we had who were going to give the invocations were from Tucson. But it wouldn't have really mattered because we have people in Phoenix anyway. So if they were going to change that standard, we could have easily just migrated over to another person. But another thing they wanted to do was far more problematic. They wanted to act as arbiters of what was legitimate religious expression. And that's something we try to drive home is that you can never give the government that ability to act as arbiters of what's legitimate political or religious expression in a public forum. That's not their place. That's not their job. And it seems

like one of the the the person who seemed to be really leading the charge on this was is City Councilman Sal DeCiccio, correct? Yeah, yeah. He I mean, recently he was on a local newscast in Arizona comparing us to ISIS. Oh, wait, I've got a clip. Can I play it? Oh, yeah, yeah, great. Okay, here we go. Let's listen to this. This is a clip of Sal DeCiccio. This is on a local show called God Christ. What's the name of it? Because the guy deserves some credit because he did such a good job grilling this guy. This is their CBS affiliate, I think Channel 12 in any case over channel 12 Sunday square off with Bram Resnick is what this is a clip from. And here we go. This is a this is an elected official on a on a Sunday show, which is like, I guess,

supposed to be some kind of hard hitting debate show. And here is Sal DeCiccio talking about the satanic temple. Let's jump ahead. Go ahead. Stu Dahan of the satanic temple. Here's what he said after the meeting. All they had to do was let us do our two minute invocation and let us walk out the door. They were so willing to do everything they could to stop us. They pulled the rug out from under everybody. Isn't he right? You were so determined to keep them out that the unintended consequence was no public prayer. Bram, you wouldn't let ISIS come in and give a prayer at the city of Phoenix. Are you comparing these guys to ISIS? Well, ISIS is evil. What is Satan? I think most people would say that Satan is evil. If I were to ask your viewers right now, you cannot compare

these guys. That's over the top. No, Satanists, they're devil worshipers. No, they're not. Have you read what they said? Have you talked to them? Have you read what they said? Do you really want to get into debate of what a satanist is and isn't? I'm going to take them for what they say that they are. They call themselves satanists. That is evil. They do not call themselves devil. They do not call themselves devil. Well, who is Satan? Who is Satan? They're devil worshipers. I had to turn it into techno song. Who is Satan? Who is Satan? Who is Satan? Who is Satan? Wow, man. So here is South of Sissio, city council member. And because the satanic temple wanted to come in and give a two minute invocation, a 65 year old tradition of saying prayers prior to this meeting is now turned

into a moment of silence. Is that correct, Lucian? That is correct. And you know what? That's fine by me. I mean, it's a win-win situation for us. If they let us speak, we assert plurality in that way. We uphold our rights in that way. If they want to shut down the prayer because they can't handle us speaking, well, that's entirely on them. And so now there's a moment of silence and that's a more secular, more tenable option, I would guess, for everybody involved. Are you opposed to prayer in public institutions if the prayer is plural, if satanists in all religions that want to have a voice are allowed to have that voice? No, but I do think it probably is difficult to manage and you certainly can't have

elected officials, government officials, servants of the public pretending that they can act. As I said, the arbiters of what's legitimate and what is not, it's not up to Sal De Ciccio to say that we're a religion or a cult. They kept saying at the city council meeting that we're a cult, not a religion. And nobody bothered to define what they meant by cult. To me, a cult should have some kind of insular regressive hierarchical structure at the very least. And we don't really have that. But to say that somebody's a cult and not a religion also begs the question of what then is a religious cult or is our religion and cults mutually exclusive? But really, it still misses the point entirely when Sal

is talking about who we are, what we believe and whether or not our values align with his or whether he thinks we're evil. That also isn't a question that they should be asking. We could be everything that they think we are. It's still not their place to make those kinds of judgments about who can speak and who cannot. I mean, it turns out our values are completely different from what he would claim in that there is no logical parallel to draw between us and ISIS. But still, there again, he's not understanding. I gotta say, I can find a parallel. Oh, yeah. Pretty graphic design. You guys have some awesome shirts. I gotta say, the flag of ISIS is pretty badass. Oh, yeah. There's a connection. I haven't checked out

their online shop. I saw some but no, I saw a hilarious picture of some cleric with an ISIS mug. Like they have their own coffee mugs, which is pretty awesome. But not to get off the point. That's, to me, seems to be the only thing that I can discover as far as anything that you and ISIS have in common. But I think I know a little bit more about the Satanic Temple because I've spoken with you before and I've done some research on you. There may be some of the people listening right now. So I was hoping maybe, even though we already talked about this in the last interview, if you could answer Sauda Sissio's question, who is Satan? Who is Satan to the Satanic Temple? Well, to us, we turn towards the literary Satan and we view this metaphorically. We don't believe

in Satan as an actual conscious deity. We're not theistic in any case. But to us, that doesn't disempower us as a religion. We fight for the rights of non-theistic religion and the legitimacy of an atheistic viewpoint still being able to have the exemptions and privileges of any other religious group. Because we think that's the only way that can work in a democratic pluralism, that you allow any item of religious opinion to have equal weight on these types of questions. But we get a lot of pushback from atheists saying, well, then why call it Satanism, as though it's arbitrary? But it's not to us. Or you have a lot of people saying that, well, clearly we wouldn't choose the name Satan if we weren't just trying to aggrieve Christians or poke

fun at them or agitate them in some way. But that's completely detached from the reality on the ground as well. I mean, we've been encultured into this society where the Judeo-Christian construct means a lot to you, whether you would want it to or not. It has some effect on your lives, and that metaphor is always going to be powerful to you. It's not as though we grew up in Christian culture and people just chose to be Christians. It's never been imposed upon you and just live and let live in that type of thing. Most of us had this kind of pushed onto us as children. That's what makes Satan and Satanism this great kind of artistic raw material through which we express our values and our goals and construct our cultural identity from. And really, it's become

pretty far removed modern Satanism from just being a reactionary movement against other religious groups. And it really isn't, I mean, it's as much for us to explain that as it is for our opponents to figure that out, because it's not as though we're very secretive about it. And I've spoken across the nation and at national conferences into the press for the last number of years. There's a recent book out by Oxford University Press called The Invention of Satanism that talks about modern Satanism as this kind of construct. So somebody like Sal De Ciccio was really concerned about what our values are or if people are really kind of concerned about where we're coming from or if they think that it's all just a prank or just some kind of bitter reaction

or whatever else. The material is there for them to learn otherwise. Right. And also, you know, to say that a religion can also be a prank, I don't think that's true. I think... Exactly, exactly. All these ideas of mutual exclusivity are crazy. And as I was saying, that goes the other way too, they're not a cult, they're a religion. Most cults I've ever heard of were religious cults. We're not a cult, I would attest due to any rational definition of such. But when people ask, are you a political movement or are you a religion? Are you engaged in satire here or is it just some type of activism or religious or whatever? It can be all of those things. And I think it's all the better for embodying all those things.

Well, certainly, you know, Islam is a political system as well as a religion. So that's an exception. But the point is, no one... I don't think the Sal De Ciccio's of the world, who by the way, if we jump back in time a few hundred years, Sal De Ciccio is going to burn you alive if he thinks you're a witch. That's what these Sal De Ciccio's when you see them in these interviews, they seem curious. Oh, well, if we come to the present, Sal De Ciccio would burn us alive today, if he had the means to do so. You can see that mindset. And if you had seen the video footage of the city council meeting, it was all out chaos in there. I wrote about it, and I did a guest post on the Friendly Atheist blog. But there were people crying, there were

people yelling out to Jesus. Some of the council members themselves broke down into tears, at least one woman started crying. I mean, it was like, as I described it as medieval, and it had the tone and tenor of an old school tent revival with the kind of yelling and ranting and raving that was going on. It was just incredible. In the things they were saying about us. Somebody even said that we were a misogynistic organization that encouraged violence against women or something like that. And that statement was qualified by the fact that Michelle Short, who is a model who was going to deliver our invocation for us, had been in photos that were altogether too sexual. So it's that idea that the sexualization and the photographs would cause violence towards

women or something like that. But it was just really over the top claims. And they seemed to think that the more they repeated these claims, the more true they made them. But what was disturbing to me also was that you had some people holding up a dollar bill and saying, well, you see this on the dollar bill that says, in God we trust. And when we say the pledge of allegiance, we say under God. And I think that kind of underscores a deeper problem. There's atheist movements to get in God we trust off of currency and get under God out of the pledge of allegiance. And I used to be of the mind that these were not really pressing issues. Those terminology isn't very problematic. That used to be my thinking. But now I see that it's

kind of a public education issue. You have people thinking that their viewpoint has this primacy, that it has this privileged place, and that legitimizes it. And I think we really do need to fight to have in God we trust taken off our currency and under God taken out of the pledge of allegiance. Because it never stops there. When one voice is asking for some kind of exclusive privilege, it's always a stepping stone to the next thing. And we're really at that kind of ad absurdum point right now. And you see that with the gay rights argument, where you find Christians claiming that they're being discriminated against, because they're not allowed to discriminate against gays, or if they're not allowed to bully non Christian viewpoints or whatever else that

it's actually discriminatory against their religious point of view. And that's kind of the backward thinking we've arrived at at this point. Well, right. I mean, we have a sort of it's interesting because the thing that these Christians have been accusing you of, your devil worshipers, your evil, you're somehow connected with some eternal dark force in the universe that you're attempting to unleash into the world. And you you're part of a law of a plan, which is we get rid of prayer first, like you, Lucian and other members of the satanic temple, and I'm speaking from their POV, probably what they imagine is that you guys gather together in some dark horrible place, sacrifice babies, get commands from some demonic entity, who's giving

you a step by step process to create a satanic empire in which the Antichrist can emerge and destroy the planet. I imagine they believe some version of that. And where it seems like the reality of what your organization is, is a group of people who are humanitarians, who are trying to keep what to me is a very antiquated and warped version of a religion. I don't even know what they're doing, you would even call Christianity. They call themselves Christians. But it seems that the reality of the situation is that these are a group of people who've transformed some texts that are very open to interpretation into some kind of dark, repressive modality that they are actively using to suppress everything great in the world, which to me is that feeling of rising above,

that feeling of being completely autonomous and free, and not having to pay some kind of goddamn tribute to an imaginary patriarchal Jehovah type God. You guys, to me, and I think I've said this in the last interview, you, Lucian, seem more like a Christian than most Christians I've met, which is where the thing starts really getting wobbly in my brain. When I think of the Jesus and the Gospels, historic, fictional, whatever it is, mythological, I see mostly a kind of rebellious creature who was fighting against the oppressive religion of the time. Is that safe to say? Well, it's funny. I wrote, I was writing in real time during the whole Phoenix thing, kind of arguing against these things that the council members were throwing out and out into the press

and those kinds of things as they came along. And I really think that helped kind of mold the debate to the point where they realized they really didn't have illegal grounds to fall back on. But one of the things I wrote was, we see too clearly that exclusive privilege breeds contemptuous arrogance and incurious minds. When God's militants take up the cross as a bludgeon to impose their tyrannical whims, what shall the advocates for liberty be called? We are Satanists, and we consider ourselves invited every time the public square is opened to religious expression. And I think what you were speaking to was part of that, that kind of inversion of values where people are kind of hiding their venal corruption behind the cross,

and what relation does it really have to any scripture? And it's interesting to me how many people always try to question our authenticity as a religious voice based on the fact that we look at things metaphorically. And I ask them to always kind of turn these questions back around on our opponents. And let's not take it for granted that they're following some kind of religious tradition today with what they're saying now. And often that doesn't seem to be the case in the least. In a real ridiculous case of that, I feel was the Hobby Lobby ruling. Where are you going to find any scriptural support for the idea that a corporation isn't to pay health care coverage for something that covers contraceptives? I mean, obviously,

that's something entirely made up in modern times. But religions, honestly, are always reinventing themselves. And there's always a kind of cultural interplay and even pop cultural interplay with how religion manifests itself in any generation. We like to think there are these entirely unbroken traditions, but that isn't true. And I think Satanism is more honest and open or rational about realizing that their place in culture and the interplay that culture has in how we kind of use these things that pop up in sometimes in pop culture. And PS, this isn't like this is an America's top model. You don't have to put your religion on display to get viewed and judged by whatever the current most populated religions that exist in

the world are. That's not the idea of this freedom of religion thing that we get to have in the United States. It doesn't matter whether or not people think it's authentic or not for you and for the Satanists to the people in the world who consider themselves Satanists. This is a very vital, living, beautiful religion that I think is actually quite healthy for people who have found themselves completely oppressed, growing up in some kind of God awful, totalitarian, psychically totalitarian family system, which is what happens. I think it's again, the difference between you and me, Lucian, is that I'm not an atheist. I have never been able to get my brain to wrap around the idea that in some infinite universe, there isn't some hierarchy of intelligence.

And based in experiences I've had with psychedelics have like really completely evaporated my ability to look at the universe as not having within it some kind of transcendent essence. But I really think that a lot of people growing up in what are called Christian households today are not being introduced to concepts like the universal consciousness or whatever you want to call it. If you're a person like me, they're being introduced to a kind of psychic cock ring, you know, where their ability to use logic and their ability to differentiate truth from bullshit is being abusively ripped away from them by their parents. And I can't think of anything more awful that you can do to a person. And so a person who's been in that kind

of cauldron of psychic abuse for the first 18 years of their life, they need something, in my mind, something like Satanism can be quite good for them, a great way for them to not be completely cut off from the beauty that comes when a group of people gather together and practice a religion, which is whatever you want to call it, seeking perhaps happiness, trying to find more of a connection to reality, whatever it may be. For a lot of people, that might be the only option. Because man, when I start yapping about Jesus to the wrong person, and I love Jesus, I like taking LSD and reading the Gospels, it's one of my favorite things to do. It's trippy and badass, and I don't care if it's real or false. And I create my own idea of what

Jesus may be, which is in my mind an alien. And it's fun. But if I say that to the wrong person, they're like, shut up, stop talking about fucking Jesus, they can't hear it. They've been completely and absolutely possibly forever kept away from exploring that mythology, just because of the classical conditioning that comes when you're having some monstrous, fragmented, corrupted version of a religion poured into your brain when you were growing up. So I get it. I totally get it, man. But what about the mythological Jesus? Is it possible to be a satanic Christian? Well, that is an interesting question. We get a lot of supportive messages, actually. Well, I wouldn't say a lot, but I mean, more than one might think from Christians themselves.

You know, it may sound completely counterintuitive to some people that we would ever get any message at all from a self-identified Christians thing that they understand where we're coming from, and they support us on what we're doing. But we do get that kind of thing. So maybe you could call those people satanic Christians. But at this point, you know, these people have these kinds of arguments. A lot of people who I talk to or whatever have arguments about what is Christianity, I guess that argument has probably been taking place for a long time. Because, I mean, Christianity somewhere where it's migrated over due to missionaries and has kind of evolved or devolved, however you look at it, in some far off region, as opposed to American evangelicalism,

probably a real world apart. So it's kind of difficult to know. Would anybody recognize the, as I said, the Hobby Lobby argument from any of the old theological texts or whatever else? There is a book called Lords of the Left Hand Path, which was talking about left hand path religions, which is typically what Satanism is said to belong to, the idea where it emphasizes the individual rather than wholeness with the one or conformity. It's more about individuation of the isolate intelligence and that type of thing. And the question raised in that book was, was Jesus the Lord of the left hand path, which was also this kind of almost paradoxical question because he seems to have become the primary icon of right hand path religion.

It's actually quite a big academic question to ask. It's so fun to think about. But look, to me, the thing is this, if you, to me, if I were, now I know you guys don't believe in the literal Satan, that you don't believe in some, correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't believe that there's some kind of dark, corrupting, disembodied superintelligence trying to drag all sentient beings into hell, correct? Right. And not only that, at least I feel that that is a counterproductive belief, that that is not a healthy belief and that is not a belief worth, worth preserving. When you take this idea that one religious viewpoint is the embodiment of all good and anything that opposes it as of Satan and evil, you're giving yourself

this kind of moral self licensing based on this symbolic construct you hold to that isn't subject to revision, because you neatly have things divided into black and white, good and evil. And and I think that that's part of what people get hung up on when they have a problem with us being Satanists or calling ourselves Satanists to imply that it is entirely arbitrary for us when we could have chosen something else is this idea that, well, the only legitimate manifestation of Satanism is this kind of embrace of evil cruelty, destruction and all these kinds of negative values. And I don't think that that's, as I said, I don't think that's productive. I don't think that's that's even fair. And I don't think it's mentally healthy.

Well, no, I mean, this is but this is where it gets really, to me, really interesting because this version of Satan, that they're accusing you guys of worshiping, if you really think about it, if that thing existed, it's clearly whatever has gotten into the city council people. It's if there were a Satan, it would be this being that is repressive, that is judgmental, and that is using lies, essentially, right, like complete the it's like an opposite. So it's using the opposite. So it's like it would get into a thing and then corrupt it from within. Now, I know that you don't believe in that. But to me, holy shit, man, when you talk about people weeping in a city council meeting, because they're so desperately opposed to letting a religion say a two minute prayer,

which by the way, I listened to the two minute prayer. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful prayer. They went through all this incredible effort to keep you guys from saying what's a really wonderful prayer. Do you haven't memorized? Do you think you could say what you guys were going to say at that meeting? If they'd let you say the prayer? Oh, yeah, I actually can I can bring it up here. I wrote it over a year ago for the Los Angeles Times. This came up actually in response to Supreme Court's Galloway versus Town of Greece. And that's when all these troubles started coming up was the Supreme Court affirmed the right to kind of have these public prayers invocations at a at in those public forums at the city council meetings and chamber meetings

and that kind of thing. And Los Angeles Times asked me then if I had any if the satanic temple could possibly offer a prayer. And if so, what it would say, and this is what I came up with, and this was what was going to be read at the at the city council. And because they refused to allow you the satanic temple to read this prayer, a 65 year old tradition of having some kind of religious invocation between these meetings has now been transformed into a moment of silence. Let's hear this prayer that the city council stopped. Okay, here it is. Let us stand now unbowed and unfettered by arcane doctrines born of fearful minds and darkened times. Let us embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat of the tree of knowledge and dissipate our blissful and

blissful and comforting delusions of old. Let us demand that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not their fealty to arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations. Let us reason our solutions with agnosticism and all things holding fast only to that which is demonstrably true. Let us stand firm against any and all arbitrary authority that threatens the personal sovereignty of one or all, that which it will not bend must break, that which can be destroyed by the truth should never be spared its demise. It is done. Hail Satan. Hail Satan. That is insane. They stopped that beautiful prayer. And to see this to me is evil. That is evil. How dare they squelch something so wonderful as that?

Well, they used to say, all the things they say about Satanists or have said about Satanists during the satanic panic of the modern times were blood liables, they used to say, against Jews as well. And you find that these things never actually existed the way they said they had. There is no evidence for the satanic ritual abuse they spoke of, this murdering of babies, the incestuous orgies, cannibalism and all that type of thing. What we do find, however, is that when a bunch of people get together looking to purge that from society, and they're certain that it's happening in the background, they tend to act in ways more evil than we had ever imagined when they engage in their witch hunts and they engage in their outgroup

making and in the witch burnings. Oh, my God. Oh, my God, I know, man. It's like I was just reading about how, you know, the Jews always had it rough for a long time. But I didn't, did you know the Christians blamed the black plague on them? Did you know that happened? Yeah. And there was also this weird idea that Jews, also when they talk about Satanists, they feel that Satanism is entirely in relation to spiting their beliefs and practices and is is entirely reactionary and an inversion of everything they hold to be true and valuable in ways that wouldn't even make sense for a group of people to be invested in. But they used to say the same thing about Jews when it came to

desecration of the consecrated host, that Jews were apparently so stricken by the power of the consecrated host in the Catholic Church that they couldn't help but take these wafers themselves and desecrate them in some ways and secret ceremonies and that type of thing. It becomes part of the black mass mythology today. Wow, man. Now, see, really, if you this is to this is where it gets really interesting to me, because here we have one of the great world religions that has historically, publicly done some of the most awful things that you could ever imagine, the inquisition, the burning of the witches. We can't even imagine all of it. I mean, the pedophilia that's in the Catholic Church, the organized protection of known pedophiles

by members of the Catholic Church, and it doesn't stop with Christianity. We look at Isis and see what's happening there, the way they're using Islam to justify and to rationalize these insane acts of violence. And we can go to almost all the world religions, probably all of them, and find examples of that religion being used as a kind of velvet glove around an iron fist that they used to pummel weak people, mostly to take their shit. And when it comes to Satanists, when do you hear about the awful things the Satanists have done? The only thing I can think of offhand, and maybe you could help me, is Richard Ramirez, the night stalker, right? Well, you hear about cases like him, but you find that they're not acting within any organized

group, and they're not acting on any established satanic doctrine. But to maybe take it a little, of course, a bit, to talk about what credibility there are to satanic panic claims when people claim that Satanists are cannibalizing, murdering, and all that kind of thing. Usually, any of these modern claims that come up are very similar in nature qualitatively to alien abduction claims, in that there was a movement for a while within the 80s and 90s, where psychotherapists primarily felt that they could draw forward repressed memories, often very abusive and traumatic memories from people under hypnosis. And this process has been entirely debunked. It's the stuff of past life regression, as I said, alien abduction, that type of thing. And what's been found is that

people tend to kind of confabulate these false narratives that match the expectations of the therapist. And sometimes they become very deeply held beliefs. These people hold it to these false memories as true. And that kind of brings me to something we're working on now as the satanic temple, is that this is still a going issue. There are licensed mental health professionals that still hold to this technique of therapy. They still believe this kind of multiple personality disorder narrative that these repressed traumas exist, and they can draw forward these tales of satanic ritual abuse and that type of thing. So you find still a fringe kind of conspiracist movement within the mental health field, where you find people with professional licensure

talking about satanic ritual abuse schemes and government mind control plots. And recently, just like the other day, the satanic temple in our gray faction is what we call it. We're still fighting this movement within the mental health profession. We put out a petition to have the state of California look into a psychologist, a licensed psychologist by the name of Ellen Lactor, who was retained by a woman named Gigi Jordan back in 2008. And Gigi Jordan had a severely autistic son, but Gigi Jordan was under the delusion that her son was not autistic, but that what appeared as autism was actually a psychophysiological manifestation of his trauma from abuse he was suffering at the hands of Satanists. And so Gigi Jordan went to

Ellen Lactor, and Ellen Lactor, it turns out, is a licensed psychologist who believes that satanic ritual abuse and government mind control are these going problems that she has some kind of expertise on. And if you look at her website, endritualabuse.org, she's obviously a disturbed woman. And I feel that if Gigi Jordan had seen a competent licensed mental health practitioner, she may not have murdered her son. And she did. She murdered her eight-year-old kid because she felt it was a mercy killing that she was preserving her child from being abused in the future by the Satanists. And I bring this up even though it's kind of a tangential story, because I have this petition online right now on change.org. The petition is titled

Petition California to Properly Investigate the Death of Eight-Year-Old Jude Mira, M-I-R-R-A. And so I would encourage listeners to read the report. I wrote a report on process.org about the case that embeds the court documents and talks about the entire issue and think about signing the petition, because I'm really hoping to use the Satanic Temple as a force for change within the mental health field to finally shut down the conspiracy theorists within the mental health community who still act as witch hunters and still ruin people's lives with their paranoid delusions. And that delusion is that right now, at this moment, there's some group of people in black robes just fisting a kid right now, just doing the most atrocious,

awful, sexually violent, fucked up thing to kids. And it's so intense, the kids can't remember it. They go to these therapists and this, these memories get dug up. But it would be kind of a relief, wouldn't it? Like if you go to a therapist and they start telling you that the reason you're an asshole is because you were abused in an organized way for a decade straight? Like what are we? Well, actually, that's why I say in the petition, because the petition is going to be sent to the California licensing board. And I point out that we're not interested in the testimony of mislactors current or past clientele, as it seems a common element of this conspiracism, is that the imagined revelation of an overarching delusional truth claim can be believed as freeing

or healing, even while placing one as in a subjective universe of suspicion, crippling fear and hopeless withdrawal from reality. Right. Because now you have a tidy narrative, you know, everything's black and white. And if you can just get rid of that evil force, everything will be okay. I threw your iPad into the wall because I was abused for a decade straight by so awesome. It's such a great way to like, it's because, you know, in Buddhism, there is the concept that life is suffering, but being alive is to suffer. And a thing like that helps to like, helps you understand your suffering. You know, Oh God, this terrible aching, empty feeling inside of me, which many people say is what it is to be a human being is actually there because these

cultists fucked me up for years and years and years. But it gets more sinister when you realize that though people in black robes aren't psychically abusing children, people in robes in the Catholic church are psychically abusing children. Well, I've done an interloper at some of these conferences and I've written about this kind of thing where, you know, the people will be claiming that it was revealed to them that they had been abused by Satanists for many years or whatever else. And their question would be, well, if it wasn't true, why on earth would I make something this horrific up? And I was thinking, Oh, come on, the reasons are obvious. So it's got to be terribly liberating to have nothing to blame on

yourself and have this important place in an ultimate battle against good and evil. But I think the real question is, why are they reveling so much in these stories of sadistic child abuse that they're reciting these fantasies up on a podium professionally for day in and day out or year after year. I begin to feel that some of them are anti-pedophile in the same way that a guy like Santorum is Rick Santorum is anti homosexual. All right, I know what you're saying. Say I assume he's he's blowing a guy. Sure. Yeah. So it's like the people are using this as a kind of outlet for some kind of weird

repressed sex drive. And by the way, I don't there I'm obviously there are people in the world who have suffered abuse. And I'm sorry if it seems like I'm trying to say that everyone who has experienced some kind of abuse is making it up in no way. I'm just saying that it does seem like some of the really extreme stories that you hear. I mean, these are these are stories that are involved the CIA and involve just insane deep levels of it's it's it's fairly. Oh, yeah, no, and some my activism in this is is specifically due to the fact that I think it's insulting to a lot of victims to right as they try to do they try to absorb all victim narrative into their conspiracy theory. And I feel like it

diminishes all those claims. I feel like they use actual victims of abuse as human shields to try to to try to protect their their cherished fantasies. Well, this so from we now understand that the satanic temple is doesn't seem to work to work according to the fundamentalist Christian stereotype about how how Satanist work. But how how what what does it look like? How does it specifically, you know, a Christian goes to church on Sunday, maybe goes to church on Wednesday, has prayer groups, reads the Bible every day, prays. What what is a satanist in the satanic temple? How does how does a satanist express this religion? What are the rituals? What are the traditions?

Well, we're given that we have this kind of philosophy of autonomy and anti authoritarianism. We don't make any demands of regular ritual or any regular rote practice whatsoever. And I really do view our activities that we do out in the public as an expression of our our religious view and our religious beliefs. But that being said, there there's also something to be said for community and cultural identity. And to that end, we have these chapters sprouting up. But we you have to realize we grew a lot faster than I ever thought we could. But we seem to be vindicated in a lot of minds much faster than I thought would be possible. And I was amazed that I've been invited to speak to as many conferences as I've been invited to

speak to at this point, and in that you can even have already newscasters like whoever on Channel 12 and Phoenix tearing a new asshole into guys like Sal Decisio in our defense. I feel like that kind of thing would have been entirely unheard of just three years ago that wouldn't have taken place at all. Do you have any any idea of the membership? How many how many members you have? Yeah, I think we're at about 40,000. And a lot of people want to start their own chapters. And right now we have about 20. And we put a moratorium on starting the new chapters for a while until we could really figure it out. You know, we want them to have their maximum autonomy, but we also don't want a chapter running off and going rogue and getting a lot of media attention on something

that none of us can really agree with, you know, that type of thing. So you really do have to have certain oversight standards in place. So we have just assembled a council that we're going to use it to act as kind of arbitrators. And we're going to work on a democratic process. And we're going to be able to kind of talk these things out, get get campaigns to be approved and that type of thing, but still retain the maximum autonomy on the chapters that we can make sure that they have all the proper guidance that they need. We're about to open the doors within the next couple weeks on on vetting new chapter applications again. And, you know, it's as I tell the new chapters coming in all the time, this whole thing about about getting media attention, you know,

like with Phoenix or whatever else, that's not that's not by far an important thing in a chapter. You don't need to you don't need to do any of that stuff to have a successful chapter at all. If a chapter acts as something of an art collective, you know, that's entirely legitimate. If this is just something that they can express themselves with is acts as their cultural identity and their sense of community. I think that's great. And I think our different chapters will develop into their own kind of different cultures as they go along. And I look forward to seeing that happen. I'm also working now on putting together ordination coursework so we can have legitimately ordained ministers or whatever they're going to end up being called so that we can apply to do things

like be licensed in fanatology and of life counseling, that type of thing. Because if you just get a mail in an ordination from Universal Life Church or whatever, that's not legitimate enough for these kind of third party organizations to give you that kind of licensing to act and in that capacity. And we want everything to be legitimate with us and we want to be able to engage in anything that having an organized religion can give you. And when we're going to take it, we're going to use that all the way. Now, the one thing that kind of disappoints me about the Satanic Temple is what you're saying. You know, I think there's something beautiful about my fantasy of like a nice black mass, black robes, people fucking on an altar, some kind of

sense of just like intensity in the air and a feeling of malevolence. Doesn't that kind of sound cool to you a little bit? Oh, yeah. And I'm not saying don't do that. Go ahead and do that. In fact, when we caused all that controversy about the black mass event we were going to do at Harvard, that was the whole point was that the black mass has that kind of appeal and that's completely legitimate. And that's something that a lot of people go through at that kind of first level Satanism when they're really kind of coming out of their religion. And that's when blasphemy really means something to them. You know, they want to piss on a crucifix or fuck at the altar or whatever. And that's great. Do that. And I think that that should be done. Have you ever done that? You've

done that? No, it's not really my thing. I mean, it's a great party. I mean, we've had events that have been debauchery. We did enact our black mass reenactment and that type of thing. It's certainly not like a Sundayly thing or anything like that. Have you ever burnt money? What's that? Have you ever burnt a $20 bill? No, I can't say that I have. See, man, one thing I love about you guys is that you really respect blasphemy because, you know, I feel that blasphemy is something that is going extinct, I think, and we're running out of ways to be blasphemous. And to me, it's one of the great tragedies because blasphemy is such a relative depending on if you do it in the right way, a relatively harmless thing. And if someone doesn't see you doing it, it then decapitates you or

something. Right, right. It should be a symbolic thing. But I think it's with blasphemy. I think blasphemy and the black mass are such great windows with which to view Satanism. And you can see, even without some kind of belief in the supernatural, even viewing it metaphorically, you can still feel the power of it. If you're doing something like that. That's right. That's what I like. It's a personal declaration of independence. And that was something I was trying to explain during the black mass thing, when these Catholics were complaining that it was a calculated insult against them. I was saying, it's not so much about you. It's about the people who are participating in it. It's about the people who are doing this behind closed doors

because they're rejecting what they feel they were oppressed by. This is their way of acting out against it. This is their way of acting out a liberation from this kind of cultural programming that's been imposed upon them. Right. And it also gives you a glimpse at the level of conditioning that you've experienced in your life. If you ever do something so ridiculous and by the way, man, let me say something that perhaps is blasphemous. I don't think to you, but maybe to some Satanist, I love Jesus. I think the religion of Christianity is amazing. And I connect with it in a lot of ways. But man, I'll tell you, I got drunk once and convinced my friend to spit on a cross. And I'll tell you, to this day, when I think of that strange night,

I feel a real sense of guilt, which I think is hilarious because it indicates where I'm stuck. You know, it shows where my limitations are at conceiving the infinite that I would think that the infinite thing, whatever you want to call it, the thing that made it or didn't make it, let's say pure randomness, whatever, that we do know one thing. If a planet spins in just the right way around just the right ball of fire, it will grow life out of it. And that's a miracle. That's a miracle more mind boggling than someone creating that life. Just the fact that given infinities course through given matter and infinity, when those two things meet, human beings emerge from a planet that's incredibly beautiful and wild to me. But to think that in universe where

these kinds of miracles happen is if it were embodied and had some kind of intelligence would get angry at some drunk kid for spitting on a cross, or get angry at a group of people for having sex on an altar, or for blaspheming this or blaspheming that, to me, that is the most ridiculous and insane and truly blasphemous concept that there is. Because at the moment that you've decided that thing from which all life emerges is so idiotic that it would want to punish or hurt. And by the way, man, one of these people, I found a sound clip of this Phoenix City Hall meeting, I wasn't able to record it, but this woman said, if we abandon God, God will abandon us. What a fucking asshole. You laugh now, but after the 17th, when we don't give our

invocation, and then you see that on the 18th, Phoenix, Arizona hasn't fallen into the ground or been raised in flames, then you won't be laughing anymore because you'll realize that everything they said was true. Yes, man. See, it's really think about that, man. You're right. It's, to me, the fact that we are having to deal with this shit right now, where we are in human history. Because it's really interesting, and I like that you're saying that the Satanic Temple can't be based on doing these kinds of things. They can't be all about getting media. Otherwise, what do you have? You can't run on that kind of fuel. Because I was thinking, if that was your power creating controversy in the press, then all that would have to happen is people who you

asked to pray in front of, if they were just like, yeah, sure, pray. If the Phoenix City Council had been like, yeah, sure, pray, come do your prayer. If there had been no resistance at all, and if there had been no resistance throughout the United States for all the varying awesome things you guys have been up to, the Baphomet statue next to the Ten Commandments, Hobby Lobby, and I'm sure there's many I'm unaware of. If people had just completely not resisted you, then you wouldn't have 40,000 members, would you? Because you wouldn't have gotten the press that you've been getting. No, and the best activists strive for their own irrelevance. So, you know, if it comes to that time, where people say, oh, well, it's the Satanist who gives a shit. You know, what happens then?

I'm sure we'll lose people. But there's, you know, a good, strong core of us who take this seriously one way or another, regardless of what happens with the outside world, regardless of what everybody else says about it, or whether it shocks or offends them or not. And I feel that we'll still be around when that day comes. When that day comes, and we offer to give an invocation, they say, okay, well, what time are you doing your invocation? Nobody gives a shit. We'll still be there. And we'll still have a strong, strong sense of cultural identity. But if you think about it, though, you know, one of the paradoxes of Satanism, Satan being this figure of rebellion, this thing that overcomes the various incarnations of Ted Cruz that have

appeared in the world and will continue to appear in the world. When you really think about it, if we eliminate that repression completely, and I'm not saying you can, but just as a thought experiment, suddenly, Satanists have lost one of the coolest things ever. I was just thinking this today, man. My God, thank God for these people who are constantly offended. You know, it's thinking like, if not for them, what a dull, terrible world we would be existing in. Do you think that's a naive point of view? Well, no. But to the question of Satanism, by the time people aren't offended by Satanism, we will have forever changed how the face of modern Christianity as well. You know,

at this point, these people who are perpetually offended cannot accept the idea that you could conceive of Satan or Satanism in any other way than cruelty, absolute evil, and those types of things because it affirms their place in their subjective universe as being the arbiters of the moral universe, of all that is moral and decent and good. So if they ever get to a point where they can accept that there are many different definitions of Satan or Satanism, and some people think of things or conceive of Satan in differing ways, just as some people conceive of Jesus in differing ways, it's going to change the religious universe. Aren't many of them already at that place? Aren't there Christians who have just made the

decision that no matter what, I'm going to love everything around me, even if it kills me, even if it's got fangs, even if it's got wings and a goat head or whether it's whatever it looks like, I'm just going to do whatever I can to love that thing. And I don't care what it calls itself. You as Satanist or a Muslim or whatever you are, I'm just going to love you. Those kinds of Christians do exist today, right? They're out there. Yeah, I think, unfortunately, they're not as motivated to get up in the morning and vote as the Ted Cruz Christians are. Right. And this is where you get into the, again, I know you're an atheist and you disagree with these kinds of thinking, this way of thinking, but I've had guests on who have speculated in the coolest way that there

really is a demonic force on earth, and the demonic force has taken over all the world religions or most of the world religions and people like Ted Cruz and anybody who's waving the flag of whatever their religion is, but who it will is clearly intent on hurting other people. Ted Cruz, if he gets elected, pretty, I don't know what the chance is of World War Three. I don't know, maybe we're already in World War Three, but it's not going to, it's definitely going to increase, right? Ted Cruz would launch some nuclear missiles if he thought that Israel was in danger, and he would do that not because he was a fan of the Jews, but because his particular apocalyptic cult that he subscribes to believes that Israel is going to be the landing pad that

Jesus comes to when he comes out of the sky. And so, you know, a lot of people think, no, you see that Satanism, you know, not your Satanism, your Satanism is this kind of beautiful celebration of freedom and the ability to overcome their oppressive structures that have limited your life, whatever they may be, the fear structures, whatever it may be, and sorry if that's a misinterpretation, but the kind of, the scary Satanism, the dark stuff, to me, people like Ted Cruz embody that energy. They embody that archetype, not of the rebel spirit, but of the thing that only wants to corrupt what is beautiful. You can't even allow yourself a little bit of leeway there and imagining that perhaps, perhaps there could be some disembodied spirit that has hypnotized these

people into thinking that they're morally superior, when in fact they are the most depraved, demonic lunatics that have ever wandered the face of the earth. Well, that's self-evident that there are some of the most depraved people to walk the face of the earth and that the most depraved people to walk the face of the earth seem to believe themselves to be the most morally just. And I think that's a strong reason not to put a name on it, not to put a name like Satanism on it, or to attach that kind of mythology to it and say that that is the essence of it, because you find that it can and definitely has encroached on Christianity, which is supposed to be the antidote to that according to their own, to their own tale,

which, you know, once you start viewing it in that way to say that what it is to, what it is to be good is to be Christian really sets up the, sets up an avenue by which people can hide their depravity behind a cross, behind just a symbolic structure. And I think that's, that's really when you start getting people acting at their worst is when you give them that moral self-licensing. We've been going for about an hour. Do you have a few more minutes or do you need to be somewhere? No, no, I'm good. Okay, great. Let me ask you. So in Buddhism, we have enlightenment. And in a lot of Eastern philosophies, there's some version of enlightenment of awakening. What is the satanic version of enlightenment? What is the satanic version of

waking up? That we don't have a rote process for. I stay away from initiation processes, that kind of thing, because everybody has their own kind of path. You know, you have old school satanism also with that, with levée and the whole kind of social Darwinist construct. And I can understand if you look at that and you're not really looking at it from kind of a cognitive science perspective and you're looking at it as, as a way of doing, doing hard business and coming out on top and, and rational self-interest and that kind of thing. I mean, for, for the person who's typically a weak need or, or prone to getting walked over, that that could be a very kind of good

philosophy to refer to. But somebody who's already kind of psychopathic to begin with, I think that could be a very destructive mindset to put them in. And I think it's the same with a lot of religious paths to enlightenment or Godhead or whatever else. It's going to work for some people. It's not going to work for others, just the way certain drugs interact entirely different with different people. So with satanism, I think we have a set of values and a set of community identity and that kind of thing. But I think people can work with that and, and use a lot of other kind of religious frameworks or self-improvement techniques to act as an adjunct to that kind of satanic philosophy in whatever works best for you, go that way. If you want to take Buddhist

elements or other meditation elements and that works best for you, I think that's a, that's an excellent thing. I don't know if I ever want to get to the point where our brand of satanism is dictating the one true path to people, because I would like people to be able to be open to any possibility of something being their, their, their own true path as they use satanism to kind of give them a sense of meaning and, and, and constructive goals. Okay, that's beautiful. Yeah. You know, I just keep thinking of like, okay, where, so, you know, in Christianity, it's easy to identify and fundamentalism fundamentalist Christianity is easy to identify. There's a million ways to offend a fundamentalist, but you could, there's probably literally a million different ways that you could

offend a fundamentalist. But how do I offend a satanist? What if I were, okay, if I, if I join the satanic temple and become a satanist, what is the, my blasphemy, if I want to blaspheme my religion, what could I do? I think at this point, if you really want to piss us off, you know, you come in and you start putting words in our mouths, because so many people have been doing that. You come in and you berate us for only doing what we're doing to piss off the, the, the Christians, start telling us like Sal De Ciccio, what our true intentions are when we go into the Phoenix City Council, he was insisting that our sole purpose was to shut down the prayers at the, at the Phoenix City Council. I really think that that's what you do right now. You come in and tell

us what we're thinking and berate us for calling ourselves satanists when we could call ourselves humanists or whatever else. That's when you're, that's when you're going to piss us off. And do you, do you find yourself in conflict with other sects of satanism? Have you been reproached in any way from older versions of satanism? Well, you know, we don't pay too much attention to that, but there was actually a pretty hilarious incident recently that was pointed out. What's his name? The guy who's, who's taken over the church of satan since Anton LeVe, a little fellow with a beard, Peter Gilmore, he, he put out some kind of statement talking since we have some kind of relationship with the production company that

made the movie, The Witch, and we're, we're doing some premiere events for the film. I'll be there this Friday, can't wait. I'm sorry, what's that? I'm going to, you got me in for, you got me tickets for this Friday. I can't wait, I'm so excited. Yeah, in LA, yeah, you know, New York is coming first then, then LA, then Austin, then Detroit, but apparently feeling the sting of us having this kind of high profile event interaction going on with the production company. Peter Gilmore from the church of satan released some kind of statement as to how he felt the Revenant was a better film than The Witch and The Witch is no good at all. And that kind of thing. That's wild, man. Yeah, which I thought would be kind of

embarrassing and beneath the dignity of anybody running a, running an organization at this point, but he said a lot of real stupid crass things about us, but you know, I can't really, I can't really be concerned with that. Can you, you are, it's, I need to have more atheists on the show and I haven't, but can you help me? How would, here's what I don't understand. Do you, let me just run through my idea, why I don't consider myself an atheist and maybe you can respond to that from an atheist perspective with what your idea of, of what might be wrong with the way that I see things. Do you mind if I do that real quick? Yeah, but with the caveat, I'll warn you that I'm not your typical atheist. I don't really identify with the, I've spoken at

a lot of atheist conferences and that kind of thing, but I'm not really in the atheist scene, so to speak. So my answers might not be entirely indicative of the rest of what's known as the atheist movement. Well, okay. Yeah, I can, I can see that. Okay, cool. Well, this is some, this is, this is how I can't, this is why I can't figure out to be an atheist. Okay, I think that the, apparently the universe seems to be infinite. I don't believe that human life or sentient life is limited to this planet, even though we don't have any evidence that it could be elsewhere. I still feel that if we're in an infinite universe, then there must be this kind of hierarchy of intelligence just based on that idea of as above, so below, like on planet earth, there's dumb people

and kind of smart people and super geniuses. There's this hierarchy of intelligence and physical prowess and size and every other thing, you know, we, without a doubt, there is always this hierarchical structure. And so I think God, there must be something a zillion times more intelligent than the smartest person on earth, somewhere in the universe. And then that thing must exponentially increase. And somewhere at that point, that's where I start getting to the place where whatever that thing is, you know, this infinite ever expanding intelligence, if we believe that there aren't any limitations in the universe. Well, that thing is what I would as a call God, not like a God, I'm going to worship, not a God that demands worship, but something so

profoundly more advanced than a single human being that by all definition, it fits into what you would consider to be a God or a super intelligence. And that's why I can't wrap my mind around being an atheist, because in my mind, an atheist is someone that believes, and maybe that my definition is just wrong, that believes that there isn't some kind of advanced intelligence in the universe outside of human beings. Please correct me. Well, I think this is why I don't even care to get into these debates sometimes with when it comes to theism, atheism, and that type of thing, when people come up and they say, well, you just don't believe in God, you feel there's no pause, you believe you know there is no God, because you identify as an atheist. So you must have a lot of

faith to believe there is no God or feel that, you know, you know, better than everybody else that there isn't a God. And in honestly, a lot of atheists reserve some type of agnosticism, but it's really not constructive to call it agnosticism, because you're talking now about a construct that you've put under the rubric of God that's really quite far removed from the religious construct of God. And when you say you believe in God, you're going to have a lot of people believing that, okay, here's somebody who believes that Jehovah who gave birth to Jesus and also hates homosexuality and abortion and those types of things and wants to stone adulterous women and cannot bear the thought of a hobby store paying

for contraceptives for its employees. It's one thing to say you believe there's more advanced intelligence in the universe. It's another thing entirely to say that you believe in the Old Testament or the biblical edicts or that your supposition that there's a higher intelligence in the universe then gives you some kind of license to dictate the very, the nature of that higher intelligence and what that higher intelligence wants from you and me. Right. Well, I mean, this is one thing that I love to do is to pray. I pray and I do that rather regularly and generally when I do that, there seems to be some kind of effect in my life and I'm fully willing to accept placebo effect. Placebo is a very powerful thing. So I guess in the same

way that I asked, can there be a Christian Satanist based on your definition of Satanism, can there be a theistic Satanist? Well, there are theistic Satanists, of course, in other groups. So, you know, we're a non-theistic group, but honestly, with our seven tenants, we put forward the scientific rationalism and that that type of thing. There's always that kind of little bit of room for people to make suppositions, I guess, based on what we don't know. So long as you're always available to revise your thinking based on the evidence given what we do know. I would say that the only real way we have to know things is by empirical evidence. Absolutely. And by scientific method and in that, you know, that kind of protocol. Absolutely. I agree with you 100% there. I'm

actually trying to pull up one of my favorite Alistair Crowley. I don't know if you call it one of his poem or adage, but here it is. You've probably heard this. We place no reliance on virgin or pigeon. Our method is science. Our aim is religion. You ever heard that before? Yes. I really love that because it's sort of like, you know, there's something about like mixing empiricism in with mysticism. You know, there's something that's really fun to just begin to do these experiments, you know, like, okay, what happens if I do a satanic black mass? Let me record the results for a week afterwards, not just like any kind of like thing that happens in my life, but what are the emotional repercussions? How will I feel? I think recording these kinds of things

is actually very useful and teaches us a lot about what it is to be a human being, you know? And well, imagine a future where the technology helps kind of construct itself and it goes far beyond the point where any person in their lifetime could understand it. And yet they kind of manipulate this technology and work with it on a daily level with that kind of process by which they manipulate the technology, then be something of a religion to them. Yeah. Yes. I mean, I think so. This is, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, when you want to talk about the second coming of Christ, or these, you know, the prophecies and so many of these desert religions, and in Buddhism too, and many other religions, the idea of the return of this thing, it seems as though that that's going

to be technology. It's going to be when these machines wake up. In this podcast I just did, we talked about how Google has produced an artificial intelligence that for the first time beat a human at the game go. And this game is exponentially more difficult than chess. And this is 10 years ahead of schedule. But the really interesting thing is they're not quite sure how the machine learned how to do it. It's already gotten a little outside of their understanding of how it's even working, according to Aaron Frank from Singularity University. So, you know, I think that, yeah, it's safe to say that whatever this thing that is emerging is going to be some form of, the word God has just been used too much, I guess. But man, why can't, here's the thing, this

is the, this is, to me, a really important and curious point. How can, I think the Satanic Temple, forgive me by the way, I mean this with all due respect, and I think you're amazing and the work you're doing is incredible. But can't we open up in the Satanic Temple room for God? Is that blasphemy? To think that we could like at least entertain the concept that there is disembodied intelligence in the universe that you can communicate with, or at least try to run the experiment from a rational point of view. And what if the placebo effect is all there is, and yet it still creates positive effects in a person's life? Doesn't that make it somehow still valid and useful in something that people should practice?

Well, I think you'll find most of us on your side when it comes to the placebo effect thing, because we're arguing for the legitimacy of viewing religion metaphorically, but it being no less powerful for that. And as I said, you know, the Satanism thing isn't arbitrary to us. We don't feel like we could choose, you know, a different name to make it more palatable or anything else. It is Satanism. So while, you know, we're manipulating these kinds of beliefs in psychological properties while trying to also be aware of them for what they are, but as to the question of God being inserted in there somewhere, I mean, if God is inserted in the gaps, as you know, you talk about the God of the gaps argument, something to be scientifically

explained, then maybe that's where where God is. I mean, that's, maybe, I mean, if it's not scientifically explained, you can't say it isn't. I personally just don't have much use for it. I'm not really going to argue with somebody who does. So if somebody's on that kind of speculative track where they think this is probably due to some kind of higher intelligence or whatever else, that doesn't really bother me so long as they're not imposing it as an absolute truth because I still feel that science is the arbiter of truth claims that that's how we know things. I mean, if that's if that's a feeling you have and you feel you have a good kind of speculative reasoning for that and realize it as speculation, I really don't have anything to say

about that. Well, I have a friend who prays to Batman, you know, I have like I like it's the idea is, look, these symbols, Satan, Batman, Jesus, Krishna, whatever it may be, it really doesn't matter if they have some kind of external place in the universe. I think too, you see people get invested in something. And even even if it started out, just a hobby or even a joke can grow into something completely different. I've met people from the Flying Spaghetti Monster Church who I feel have really begun to take it seriously as a lifestyle in religion. You also see the growing Jedi Church, I think especially in the UK. And, you know, Star Wars fans say they act as as earthly Jedi. Yes. And I have no idea I haven't really looked into how they behave or

or or what their their practices or how they meet or anything like that. But I really would not be surprised if generations on or or even or even now you find people who take this very seriously and in every way it could be legitimate to them as a religion. And you know, to me, Star Wars is is is no more fiction than than the Bible. And that doesn't mean it's not worth paying any attention to. And certainly it is if you're trying to understand the people who treat it as a religion. Right. That's it. I mean, that is that to me that's ultimate freedom of religion is is is freeing people from the idea that the only thing that you can tune into are these pre existing mythologies. And that said that here in this time period in

human history, there's so many wonderful things, so many wonderful symbols that that you could connect to that are going to make your life way better, way better. And that doesn't mean that they're real or not. I you know, this is to me, this is a really important thing about being human is that you can allow yourself to tune into something a little beyond where you currently are, whether you know, if you want to get in shape and you start hanging out with people who are in shape, that's good, you're going to get in better shape probably, or if you have some vision of a person that you think is in great shape. And in the same way, these these archetypical symbols, like Satan, for example, the rebel spirit, like if I ever found myself in some kind of

predicament, where I was being oppressed by some Ted Cruz type, who is trying to limit my freedom and make me be make me afraid of my natural instincts to express myself in the world according to the way I felt based on my own logical and intuition, instinctual abilities, then I think praying to the Satan, that is the symbol that is at the core of this church, the satanic temple, I think that could be a very useful thing, you know, invoking that being talking to that being, even if it is just a mirror of your own mind, you know, it's still a mirror of some deeper part of yourself that maybe you've become disconnected from. That's all. I'm sorry, Lucian, I just want you guys to wear robes a little bit more than it seems like you're doing,

man. I want robes, incense, some altars. Well, you know, you might be seeing some of that in LA. Oh, really? This is this very weekend. See, that's good. That's good. Do you are you maybe a little hesitant to talk about some of the robe stuff because you feel like in some ways it might be a road bump to some of the social work you're doing in the world? Oh, no, no, no, it's just not it's not required. I my only hesitation on talking about that kind of thing is that I don't want people to think that that's compulsory for anybody who's going to get active or get involved with us. I mean, it has its meaning for for people with us people who do that kind of thing. But it's it's definitely not something you have to get involved in active in

the satanic temple. Look what you've done, Lucian. Here you are. And you found yourself in a very precarious place of being a religious leader. You would you are whether you like it or not, you know. And what a tricky place to get into, isn't it? It really seems like a really confusing position that you find yourself in. I'm getting increasingly more comfortable with it, though. I was I was deeply uncomfortable with this coming into it. And actually, deeply uncomfortable with the with the media attention. I love drawing attention to the campaigns we work on and the issues that we explore. And I like being able to debate with people about this, but just the same. It's there's this kind of disconnect because at the same time, I really kind of hate the

personal attention. Did you happen to see the CNN Lisa Ling piece about us? No, I didn't. Oh, it'll be on Netflix sometime soon. Her second season is coming to Netflix, but they did a full a full hour about us that aired on CNN. And it was really, really difficult to agree to, you know, we get a lot of offers a lot all the time from different film production companies that work with networks and that type of thing that see something interesting in the Satanic Temple and think it would make a good documentary or show. But almost all of the time that the pitches they throw at us are outright insulting because they want to do some reality TV type bullshit, you know, follow us through the life of a day in the life and that type of thing. And we're very invested

in just drawing attention to the issues, not really doing any personal profiles with media and that type of thing. But Lisa Ling, I felt did a really fair job. And I think I think you'll like it if you see it. I'll check it out. I'll check it out for sure. Do you do you get worried at all that you've placed yourself in this position? Because it seems like you have gone to war with some of the most violent, crazy, delusional and angry people on earth. Do you ever get a little nervous that one of these freaks is going to do something is going to do something violent to you or to some of your some members of the temple? I worry more that they'll do it to somebody else in the temple because if anybody's going to get shot or otherwise killed in some way

by some lunatic, it better be me. And that was part of the problem I have with with us doing things on TV or some of the media attention, doing things too publicly and that type of thing is I really do worry about the people I work with on this. And sometimes I worry that they might not understand fully the ramifications of putting their face on something like this and being very public about it. So it's hard for me to kind of figure out which way to go with that. Sometimes because on the one hand, I argue for them to use pseudonyms if they feel necessary, keep their faces out of it or whatever else. But on the other hand, the more of us who come forward and say this is what we're doing and this is who we are, the easier it is, the better it is for all

of us. Right. So it's a difficult kind of thing to manage right now. But it's getting better all along. I mean, there's some people who will never feel anything but extremely violent towards us. But as I said, hopefully, they're going to come after me. Well, man, I hope not. Hopefully, they don't come after any of you. You all you seem to be just such a beautiful person. And I just want to end on this question for give me if it's a little cheesy. What is the Satanist's perspective on love? Oh, I can't I can't act as I can't dictate that to Satanists in general. Right. I mean, I, you know, I view things from it from an atheistic viewpoint. But that's that's not to say I don't feel that a word like, like love can

properly describe the processes by which you become attached to some things to someone something or or any, you know, you get into you get into the brain sciences or arguments with with other theists and that type of thing where they say that scientists have reduced love to the firing of synapses in the brain or chemical processes and that kind of thing. And it's not really the case. I think it, you know, even if some people in the sciences feel that way, I feel that they are also acting in this kind of reductionist way where they feel like they can see these kinds of correlates, you know, the firing of the synapses, the chemical processes, and say that well, now we understand this, but you don't understand it. If, of course, if you don't already understand the

subjective feeling of it, you know, that kind of emergent property that comes from this kind of process that we don't even understand fully yet, or that you could, you can can't possibly determine by by mapping and its entirety at this this point, you know, yeah, that's probably a really kind of belabored and senseless answer. It's a great answer. And it's a beautiful answer too. And yeah, I mean, God, it's a maybe a belabored and senseless answer, but it's probably a senseless question. So forgive me for it. But I think what I'm getting at is that we have a lot of shorthands by which we describe very complex processes. And that doesn't, that doesn't, it doesn't disempower them in any way, when we kind of break down and see their, see their most basic

components. Right. I know there's a lot more to be articulated in this. I just hadn't thought about it before your question well enough. I'm sure I could write a whole essay about it at some point and actually sound, sound intelligent to the question. And what a great essay, because you know, how love, you know, whether or not it's just some kind of random firing or release of neurochemicals in the brain, or whether it's not like the expression of, I just, I just find it funny when people can say, though, that, that, well, no, we've actually found out that love is just this kind of firing of synapses or this kind of chemical imbalance, or, you know, this, this chemical process is this hormonal reaction, that type of thing. And you could just as easily say

the exact opposite. Oh, we found out that this isn't but say a, a hormonal reaction in synaptic firing. This is love, you know, so it's, it kind of depends on your language, doesn't it? Yes, but the fling remains the same. That's right. Yeah, man. And, you know, I think it's it would be really cool to see us an essay from a Satanist on love. I think that that could be a really an important thing. And I think it could be a kind of a, you know, it could be a place to find connectivity, you know, and you're, you're waging what as far as I'm concerned is a very important battle against something that's a very something that's very dark and something that as human technology continues to accelerate, becomes increasingly dangerous. And so I think

what you're doing is, is very important and, and battles like that need to happen. But also, we have to find a way to connect to, you know, we have to find a way to connect with all of these diverse ways that people see the, the universe. Because otherwise it's just endless war, you know, and it seems like one thing that all religions have in common is, well, no, God, you get in trouble when you say that. But many religions have in common is a deference to the experience of love, you know, and the conceptualization of love as being one of the most, if not the most important quality of being a human being. And so yeah, I'd love to hear, especially from your POV, you're so articulate, you're so smart, it would be really cool to hear

a satanic essay on love. That would be great, man. I hope you consider writing something like that. I'll write it at some point now dedicated to you. God, that will be one of the coolest moments of my life, Lucien. And I know people who have listened to this are going to want to contact you or maybe figure out ways that they could start, they could get into the process of maybe starting their own groups or branches of your church, or they just might want more information, or they might want ways to connect with other members. Can you please let those listeners know how they can get in touch with you or the church, or the temple rather? You can find me on Twitter at LucienGrieves.com,

or at LucienGrieves, sorry, on Twitter. Our website is thesatanictemple.com, and that will lead you through whatever you want to do. Find out our campaigns, to look at what campaigns we're working at, find out how to contact people near you. Actually, what's not on the website right now, but I'll bring up again, is the change.org petition that I would like people to check out, petition California to properly investigate the death of eight-year-old Jude Mira, M-I-R-R-A. So look that up. And we're also on Facebook. Our Facebook is active. I put our media there, and what we're working on currently all the time. And we have a general satanic temple Twitter as well at satanicsalms. So those are the best ways to check into what we're doing

and keep up with us. We're active on our social media, so... Great. Great, man. Thank you so much. Everybody listening, I'm going to have the links at dunkintrustle.com. And as always, it's such a pleasure chatting with you. You're such an inspirational person, and I hope you keep fighting the good fight. I will. Thank you so much. Thank you, Lucien. Thanks for listening, everybody. That was LucienGrieves. Go check out the satanic temple. All the links will be at dunkintrustle.com. Don't forget to use our Amazon portal.

Give us a nice rating on iTunes. Give yourself a nice rating on iTunes, and make sweet love to your darling on this Valentine's Day. And if you don't have a darling, make sweet love to yourself, because that's what you're there for. Hare Krishna. I'll see you next week.