Podcasts/Crawlspace-Ep21

Crawlspace Ep. 21 - Lucien Greaves of the Satanic Temple (Live)
August 31, 2017 17:00
In this episode Lance Reenstierna & Tim Pilleri are joined by the Night Time Podcast's Jordan Bonaparte as they talk to Lucien Greaves of the Satanic Temple in Salem, Massachusetts. This episode was recorded live at the Rockwell Theater in Somerville, Massachusetts on August 18th, 2017. Topics range from Lucien's appearances on Fox News to what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia.
https://pod.casts.io/podcasts/crawlspace-true-crime-mysteries/episodes/lucien-greaves-of-the-satanic-temple-live

Transcript

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Unknown Speaker 1:26 crawlspace. Here we are tonight Lance with a live show recording. How fun was this?

Unknown Speaker 1:35 I'm still coming down from the adrenaline of that, aren't you? Don't you just sit around and think about you know what it was like before going out? Meeting with Jordan introducing Lucien introducing Aeleus the audience the reaction. It was that that rush of adrenaline right before going out. It was it was amazing. The whole

Unknown Speaker 1:59 night was really incredible getting there in the afternoon during the tech run meeting Jordan, his wife and his kid was a lot of fun. And we went through the show and got to a place where we felt pretty good about it before we left and sort of got freshened up and came back and had dinner and we went on it was so fun. Lance, we have to do this more.

Unknown Speaker 2:20 It was yeah, it was incredible. Just want to quick thanks to the theater, the Rockwell. What an amazing location. You and I performed there a couple of times many many years ago. And it was it was literally it was what it was it was a basement theater and they have totally renovated it that new ownership came in totally renovated it. It seems like this. It's like the speakeasy type location. There's a bar in the lobby that never used to be there. The lighting is amazing. The theater itself is a three sided theater. It's amazing. It's perfect for the live podcasting.

Unknown Speaker 2:51 Yeah, it really is perfect for that. And there's a lot of fun to engage with an audience in a space like that. It's three rows, three sections of three rows. So it's really you know, like 80 people and it feels like it's full. But you can you can see everyone's face you can really get to interact with everyone. So I think we're going to do a lot more shows there. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 3:11 yeah. So shout out to Rockwell Laura over there. The the managing director Dan, who was our our AV guy who wasn't quite sure what was about to happen, I think he was more trained for specific cues. And we were more trained for Hey, just kind of go with the flow. But halfway through the show, we got into a rhythm and it worked out really nice. And we also had some some other podcasters show up, which was super awesome. And if this happens in any of their cities where they're twisted Philly pleasing tears. It was super cool to see those people.

Unknown Speaker 3:47 Yeah, Dina and Mike made it out there from Philly and from South Carolina. So that was really cool to see them and oh, your coworker who helped with tickets, Stacy. So we just want to give her a thank you to

Unknown Speaker 3:59 Oh yeah. Stacy and her roommate. They took the tickets. My other co worker Davis, Davis layman, who is a ridiculous cat artist and he's never done any advertisement before and I asked him to do this. And he did this kind of 3d type ad for it. Really dug deep into it and enjoyed it. So he was there with his girlfriend and and got hooked his girlfriend's a big Manson fan. Big Charlie Manson fan. So I'm thinking next show there's going to be around Halloween. We got to book it. Let's do it. Oh, I can't wait. I'm gonna break this. This this hot scoop. You haven't heard this yet? I was just emailing with the director of the Rockwell and she said Monday the 30th of October is open. And she specifically said I think it'd be really cool to do a Monday show. A Monday Halloween show.

Unknown Speaker 4:50 Well let's let's talk about it. I don't know how we would you go I guess is the question out there to the audience. What time would this show be

Unknown Speaker 4:57 Monday is a lot easier to have a flexible timeframe. So it could probably be anywhere from 730 to 930 10.

Unknown Speaker 5:05 Very interesting. Okay. Yeah. So email us a Tweet us, let us know if you would go. I know, I know, we had a pretty good crowd for the show on August 18, with Lucien and Aeleus. I'm just curious, wondering how we can do on a Monday. So let us know, we put it

Unknown Speaker 5:21 out there. And we'll see if there's a good response, then we'll start moving forward. We got some guests in mind for that, you know, that timeframe. But I think I think regardless, whether it's a Monday show, or a Friday show, or eight o'clock or 10 o'clock, right around Halloween, it's gonna be a good time.

Unknown Speaker 5:38 And for this episode, this version of our live show is the first one we ever did. We have Jordan, of course, from the nighttime podcast, who came down from Nova Scotia from Halifax to join us on this live show, he arranged his family vacation to make this live show with us to talk to Lucien do you feel about that? I mean, it's crazy. We get to meet Jordan, who we've known for a while and, and we love the guy, he's great. And then we get to meet him, his family, and then we get to meet Lucien and Aeleus all in person

Unknown Speaker 6:11 all that day, too. So there wasn't like a there wasn't any time where we, you know, got together a couple days beforehand, you know, we've been texting and emailing, but it was all that adrenaline and all that, you know, good to see you type thing all happened live on stage, Lucien comes out. And you get to hug the, the co founder of the Satanic Temple. And that was, that was something that I can, I guess, check off the bucket list that I didn't know I had on my bucket list. But and then LDS comes out. And, and the the audience was, it was a really, it was a really smooth transition to what she had talked about, with the missing men and vanishing men of Boston, the audience seem really, really captivated by that as much as what they were with the Satanic Temple and their principles.

Unknown Speaker 6:54 Yeah, absolutely. And so we're not going to play much of Aeleus. Here, she was on episode one of our coverage of the vanishing men of Boston. And we're going to do its own separate episode in the next few weeks, where it's the topic from this night from the live show, we talked about the vanishing man. And we'll read some emails and comments from our coverage so far from those cases as well. But that'll be coming up. So this one is specifically focused on Lucien Greaves and the Satanic Temple of Salem.

Unknown Speaker 7:26 Were you nervous? around him? Were you nervous to talk to him?

Unknown Speaker 7:30 A little bit? Yeah, at first sure.

Unknown Speaker 7:31 Was it intimidation? Or was it you were nervous because of the subject matter and the content?

Unknown Speaker 7:37 I guess I was raised Catholic, and I'm really kind of not now. But I think like he mentions in in the live show that some people are just kind of instinctually afraid of the word Satan, and people who stand for satanic beliefs and things like that. So I feel like I couldn't really help it. Nothing about him, made me feel nervous, like he was very warm guy. If anything, he's intimidating, because he's so smart.

Unknown Speaker 8:02 It's exactly what I was gonna say. You think that you are going to be nervous, or one thinks that they're going to be nervous, interviewing somebody like him in front of a live audience, because of what he stands for, and the subject matter. But the more you hear him speak, the intimidation and the anxiety actually increased for me, because I had never experienced anyone who was so eloquent in answering questions on the spot. We didn't give him prepared questions, and, and he nails them when he answers them. And it was like, I felt like, you know, like a comparison of a boxer, like, like Apollo Creed, and Rocky, and Apollo is looking at Rocky, like, he won't go down. And he's just shaking his head. Like, Lucien just you can't ask him anything that's gonna knock him down. And even even the audience questions. He's still he doesn't even pause. He just knows how to go right into it. And they're not canned answers, because there's no way they could be. He had no idea we're gonna ask him. So I think I wasn't I wasn't at all intimidated in the beginning. But I think maybe like five minutes into the conversation, I realized what we were dealing with. And these is, his passion for what he does is, you know, you're not gonna, you're not going to outsmart him in that conversation. And I think Lucien wrapped it up nicely and bluntly, when he said, I understand that reading the seven tenants of Satanism is a mindfuck. Because it's inherently human. And you read those and if you use if you lose the word satan, you'd read those and say, well, that's how I want to act as a human. And that would that was one of our big things when we were going into it because I thought that it was a and it sort of is it's a political movement, the Satanic Temple, to first free speech, free freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, assembly, all of that. And I thought my mistake was that they just use the satanic ideal to, to showcase that, because you can't use you can't have strong opinions and and not have a not have a powerful vehicle to move your opinions. But the the whole concept of being a Satanist is rebelling.

Unknown Speaker 10:26 Yeah. And it's a very this time in the country is very unique. And he said that since Trump's been elected that the the crowd the amount of people have grown. So it's you know, people are wanting to rebel right now against what's going on in the world in the country. Right.

Unknown Speaker 10:47 And it's good to rebel. If you have the if you have the education and you have in your articulate about it. And your purpose is sound and just and not saying I'm converting to Satanism or anything, but I mean, he presents a pretty good argument.

Unknown Speaker 11:03 Well, what we do here Lance is actually kind of satanic because what we do is question authority. And that's what all we're talking about really when you boil it down? Well, we do it with we wouldn't be doing a podcast about more Amari or about Brianna Maitland if cops found the perp or found the person, you know, whatever, whatever the case may be, we're questioning authority by the very nature of having this podcast

Unknown Speaker 11:30 Exactly. If it's if it's the true crime genre, the citizen detectives out there the the whole concept of this is questioning and challenging the status quo and authority.

Unknown Speaker 11:43 So pretty cool. So So you know, keep an open mind when you listen. We're not expecting any religious converts, honestly, we don't care if you want to or not want to not really our business? Or why why we wanted to have this conversation of what this podcast out. So just have an open mind, listen to him, you're going to come across impressed, I would, I would imagine.

Unknown Speaker 12:06 Right, I just want to say one more thing we did title, the show, curious conversations. And we're not going to present to you something that won't arouse your curiosity. We're not going to bring somebody into into the mix, where they're going to talk about something that everyone agrees with, you should be challenged, and you should have your curiosity challenged, and you should be open to that challenge. Because if you don't, then you just get stuck in the in in the ebb and flow of life. And that's it. And you and you don't experience other things, you don't meet new people, and you don't open your mind to new concepts. It's never too late to open your mind to new concepts. I mean, who would have thought 10 years ago that you and I would even consider saying the words out loud that we somehow became investigative journalists

Unknown Speaker 13:01 two years ago, I wouldn't even understand you saying that. But

Unknown Speaker 13:05 you really need to have, you really need to have open concepts and open consideration for all sorts of curiosity out there.

Unknown Speaker 13:12 So with that, let's throw it to this audio, really fun conversation with Jordan, and Lucien and Jordan introduces Lucien. And so then we kind of cut it short before we get into Aeleus and the vanishing men of Boston, which we will release as its own separate episode

Unknown Speaker 13:31 shortly. We made no secret about the fact that our first guest was met with a mixed reaction. We announced that him joining us, but based on the comments we received by email and Twitter messages and whatnot, it was obvious that the negative reaction was from people who had no idea who he is, what he's accomplished, or most importantly, what he stands for. And it was disappointing as regardless of what you believe in where you're from, or who you choose to love. He's likely done more to protect your children and your personal freedom than you likely realize. And he's done it through political change, despite the fact that he's not a politician. He's just some guy from Detroit, who is creative. ballsy, super intelligent, in the best part of all, at least to me, is he done it all in the name of Satan. So I'd like to introduce Lucien Greaves, co founder of the Satanic Temple

Unknown Speaker 14:55 I'm a little jealous that Jordan got a hug from the co founder of the Satanic Temple.

Unknown Speaker 15:06 Yeah, and as I said, we got a mixed reaction. Thank you we had, of all the mess of everything we've I've ever done as publicly. I think the most negativity I received was when we first announced him. Although there was a lot of supporters, there was also a lot of why would you subject your listeners to a satanic cult? Are you trying to recruit people for for Satanism, we had people cancel their tickets, although it is all true, I think. I think there's much more to loosen, then, then they realize so just to basically to open it, open it up completely. The first thing I'd like to ask Lucien is if you could just explain the difference between what you do and what the Satanic Temple does, versus what the satanic cult that keeps Tim awake at night does. So if you could just explain, you know, the difference what you're doing versus what people are afraid of, because I'm terrified right now sitting next.

Doug Misicko 16:09 Right? Well, the mythology is that satanic cults engage in ritualistic abuse, and that they have mobile crematoriums that they dispose of the bodies in. And in all these other things you've heard on daytime talk shows in the 80s. And during the 90s. That is a very big topic and all the reasons that people believe those kinds of things can't be touched on here. But some of that still goes on today, in what experts really found law enforcement looked into these kinds of claims. They never turned out to be true. This was this was a large scale moral panic. And it's a way for people to avoid their real problems. And we see that today with like Charlottesville, we see different pastors claiming that in they've said this explicitly, there was a week ago, about there was a piece in The Washington Post, which I'm posting a bottle on in the Washington Post in the next week, written by a Baptist minister saying that white supremacy is Satanism. In fact, it has very explicit Protestant roots that KKK is explicitly a Protestant, religious sect. And Satanism often has just been a pejorative term is a way to other people, and in that way, justify doing horrible things against them, outcasts in the community, minority groups, whoever else. And part of what we do is we stand up for the unjustly accused and the minorities and the outcasts, and we fight for true religious liberty and pluralism. And you see a lot of that in the things that Satanic Temple does, when we ask for equal equal religious representation where religions are allowed in the public forum. And we've seen many public forums shut down rather than allow the Satanic Temple to speak at all. We recently saw that in Minnesota, where we offered a Veterans Memorial in an open forum for veterans memorials where a Christian one existed, we offered one ourselves a very kind of sober and respectful monument, and yet it was all together too much for the community. So it's really kind of a strain on free speech, but not one that's simply meant to harass the community, but make them think about what these issues really mean, and what American principles really are of democracy and pluralism. And I think it's a lesson that that is well needed today.

Unknown Speaker 18:33 Okay, let me just get this out of the way real quick here, Lance. So you have never sacrificed goats, babies, nothing like that.

Doug Misicko 18:42 I didn't say any of that. But what I do on my private time is my own business. And this certainly has nothing to do with the doctrine of the Satanic Temple.

Unknown Speaker 18:52 Now, you mentioned the memorial. The Veterans Memorial

Doug Misicko 18:57 Veterans Memorial is now on display at our headquarters in Salem. We do have a headquarters in Salem, it's there now because they couldn't tolerate it being on the on the actual property and Bell plane. But it's a it's a cube. It has inverted pentagrams on it and a soldier's helmet on the top. There were size restrictions on monuments. So it needs to be fairly small. It's a it's a very sturdy steel construction, because we had to figure that there was a high potential for vandalism. But we were approved, the bell plane originally approved and then they said they fully understood the ramifications of opening up the property what people don't. I need to step back further. There was originally a Christian group put a Christian cross as a Veterans Memorial in the park in Belle Plaine veterans park. They didn't ask for approval, they didn't ask for approval from the city. They just fucking plopped it there and decided that that they were marking their territory as so many evangelicals do, declaring this a Christian nation And then the Freedom From Religion Foundation reached out at the behest of a local who was complaining a local in Belle Plaine was offended by this, that it was a violation of church and state to allow this to stay on the public property. So the city took it down. After they took it down, the Christians complained loudly. And a lawyer from Alliance Defending Freedom came in evangelical litigation group came in said that they had a rock solid proposal to open up the Veterans Memorial Park is a free speech zone. And the idea being that anybody could could put a private donation into the public park, something that would memorialize veterans in that way. It wasn't government speech, it was private speech. And it was it was open to First Amendment protection. They did that. And we called their bluff. They they felt that they would be the only ones there that nobody would have the audacity to put something, a religious monument that wasn't Christian there. And we put in our proposal and proposal met all the standards, the Catholic Archdiocese over in Minnesota decided that this is classic, they decided that if the if the satanic memorial was to be there, this could lead to the mala station of local children. And we didn't know at first we didn't know at first if this was a threat, like if they were saying that if you put this monument up, if you allow this to happen, we will molest your children. But they had this idea that it's a it's a very obvious case of projection. You know, they, they're, they're denying their their own sinister proclivities to claim that this is what Satanists do.

Unknown Speaker 21:48 So this irks you, obviously, forwarding, you know, putting up a monument, in the name of Christianity obviously rubs you the wrong way?

Doug Misicko 22:00 Well, it's fine. So long is the free speech zone is actually respected. If it's government endorsement of a particular religious view, then it's problematic if you have a 10 commandments monument on state capitol grounds. And this is what happened in Oklahoma when we offered our bathroom at Monument and I don't know if everybody's familiar with that. But we actually, I think they're pretty familiar now. All right, yeah. Now, now this is this is full scale. It's what eight and a half feet tall. One and a half tons. And this is also now residing in Salem at our headquarters, so you can go visit it. Are

Unknown Speaker 22:37 we able to get our picture in front of it if we show up?

Doug Misicko 22:39 Oh, yeah. Yeah, we'll do that tomorrow. Okay. Good time. But, but the point being was that we didn't want bathmat alongside the 10 command we didn't want bathmat on public grounds alone. It was it was there to act as a counterbalance against the 10 commandments. It was there to demonstrate that plurality is still respected that we live in a pluralistic nation that respects religious freedom. And in this way, we we call the bluff of the evangelical theocrats, who go around claiming that that there's a secular message behind the 10 commandments or that it's not government speech, because they're willing to respect other points of view that come in. Once we actually test that we find that that's simply not the case.

Unknown Speaker 23:24 Because once you had this built in, we're ready to install it. My understanding is they they took down the 10 commandments monument.

Doug Misicko 23:32 They took down the 10 commands monument. But in Oklahoma, the case was the case went to the Supreme Court, I believe it was the ACLU litigating. And there was a it was based upon the state constitution of Oklahoma, which stated that nobody within the state of Oklahoma could be made directly or indirectly to participate in Fond or otherwise engage in somebody else's religious practice by by government Fiat. In the 10 commandments monument was a rule to be in violation of that. When I did say the Megyn Kelly interview on Fox, she attributed the taking down of the 10 commandments monument to our efforts to put up alphabet in though we can't, we can't know how much of that was a consideration for the state Supreme Court, they had to have it in mind. They had to have it in mind that whatever they were going to rule on the 10 commandments monument was going to have ramifications for our requests to put up bathmat in Oklahoma. And I think it may have influenced their decision to say that certainly Yeah, we can't have religious monuments is government speech at all?

Unknown Speaker 24:41 What story I'd love to love you to tell is so as you're fighting with the governments and these you know, these religious groups and whatnot, never on fighting is the right word defending you know, it's probably more appropriate. But I understand you did get yourself in trouble at some point and I was reading about the the pink mass, could you just tell the story of what you did and what it was in reaction to, and what ended up coming out of that.

Doug Misicko 25:05 Yeah, I don't think you're going to see a more contentious event in Boston until tomorrow. But but at the time, this was the Boston Marathon bombing. And this was before they knew who had who had done it. And Westboro Baptist Church was going to come and protest the, the funerals of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, in a lot of people showed up to counter protest, and I was there among them, and we were waiting to see the Westboro Baptist Church show up. And everybody was infuriated. Nobody was in a good mood after the Boston Marathon bombing. It was martial law. And in people were, were very agitated about the Westboro Baptist Church. And it's probably best that they didn't show up. But like smart asses, they took to Twitter and they were saying, you know, you all showed up for us. And we were there in spirit. And they, they, you know, did some little Photoshop of their protesters hovering above the heads of the counter protesters who were there in Boston, they're holding signs it said, God brought the bombs and things that other other things that suggested that the victims of Marathon Bombing deserved it in the important part was that they said that they were there in spirit. So this kind of got our gears turning to thinking about how we could also meet the Westboro Baptist Church on somewhat more spiritual terms to be with them in spirit. So naturally, Fred Phelps, who since his died was alive at the time, we looked up where his mother was buried. This is only I'm sure this, this practically writes itself, you can. I'm sure you know, the idea now. So anyways, we went to her grave site, and decided to have a homoerotic satanic ceremony at her grave site, which culminated in me, respectfully, resting my testicles on her headstone. And we had a lot of pictures of this taken that we disseminated afterwards. And they got, they got very angry, and they got very upset. And we declared that we had turned his mother into a lesbian in the afterlife.

Unknown Speaker 27:16 And let's just pull up that visual of the test. I'm just kidding. We don't have it.

Doug Misicko 27:23 There are visuals online. But we want to also be clear that we still don't, we don't advocate for views of supernaturalism. We don't believe in the supernatural or non theistic religion. But we were taking the position that we believed that they were obligated to believe due to their beliefs, that we had turned her into a lesbian in the afterlife. That was something of a commentary on the argument they had taken all the way to the Supreme Court, that belief is inviolable, and you know, they're not subject to correction on any empirical evidence whatsoever, because that's simply their belief. So we were free to believe that they believed that she was a lesbian in the afterlife, despite whatever they might say. And they really did give us the credit of doing their famous you know, they do those. I don't know if you've seen them, they do their fliers and they did a whole kind of flyer with all their symbols around it with some kind of senseless, asinine ranting about how Satanists queers, and whoever, you know, we're just, we're all wanting the same and we're all damned to hell. It was a good time.

Unknown Speaker 28:35 So that the testicles that that what part of the in the pink mass does that? Like, what does that mean as far as the pink bass,

Doug Misicko 28:44 that means, you Fred Phelps, Westboro Baptist Church? I mean, if we're gonna be honest about it, that's that's really what the message was there. That really wasn't part of this scripted event at all. I kind of went rogue bit of inspiration got caught up in the moment. And that was actually there was kind of debate about that within my own people of whether that was a wise thing to do or not, but I certainly don't regret it. But you were asking about trouble right. Afterwards, the police in Meridian, Mississippi, were trying to get a judge to sign off on various offenses that they thought I could be charged with, in Eventually they settled upon desecration of a grave. And the the sheriff over there, I don't think he counted on kind of pushback and defensive Satanists who were protesting Westboro Baptist Church, but that's what he got. And he was becoming an item of ridicule. And in outlets like Huffington Post and vice and things like that, where he was originally saying that I was concerned prison time or whatever he was saying, all right, this is a $500 fee at most. So I was back here in Massachusetts and I was talking to my lawyer and I said, Well, let's go fight the charge. I'll wear horns and let's keep and we'll bring cameras and what will actually go to court over this? And I had said such insulting things about the sheriff though that I thought we should know for sure that I couldn't be detained. And when my lawyer looked it up, he said now you could do a year and so we said, Okay, fuck it, we're not. We're not going back to Mississippi. And now I can't go back to Mississippi. Shocks there's big

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Unknown Speaker 32:08 We mentioned Megyn Kelly and the Fox News interview that you did and we actually have two clips if everybody wants to see them. I don't know if anyone has seen these yet. It's Tucker Carlson interviewing Lucien and Megyn Kelly interviewing Lucy and about four minutes or so. But I want to point out not so much Lucy's reaction. But at Tucker Carlson's face during this whole thing is probably one of the funniest things I've ever seen. So if we can roll with that.

Unknown Speaker 32:42 City Minnesota once featured a small Christian monument that was dangerous and offensive of course. So there are lawsuit threats and the city declared the monuments location a free speech zone but that in turn drew the attention of a Satanist group, which wanted to erect a satanic shrine in the park and decide to remove all religious symbols from the park instead. Lucien Greaves is the co founder of the Satanic Temple and he joins us tonight. Lucien thanks for for joining us. I don't know much about Satanism. What are the five pillars of Satanism? What is it?

Doug Misicko 33:16 We have seven seven tenants actually and actually they're irrelevant to our claim to be allowed in the free speech zone.

Unknown Speaker 33:23 Well the the relevance your claim to be a religion. And so I just just give us a sense of

Doug Misicko 33:30 being a religion has no bearing on us.

Unknown Speaker 33:34 But you do claim to be a religious want to know what it is it? Is it the worship of Satan?

Doug Misicko 33:39 No, we're actually non theistic and modern Satanism has been recognized as non theistic for some time now there are actually scholars of modern Satanism, there's books about new religion that cover Satanism. But as I said, it really has no bearing on our claim claim to access to the free speech.

Unknown Speaker 33:55 I guess the point of calling this Satanism is to horrify like normal people in the middle of the country. That is exactly that's not

Doug Misicko 34:04 true. No, no, that is not. So what is the point? argue that

Unknown Speaker 34:08 I'll give you 30 seconds. What's the point of Satanism?

Doug Misicko 34:12 Well, to sum up a religious movement in his history in 30 seconds isn't quite here. But I would say that, but I would say that Satan is Satanism in bodies enlightenment values, it is emblematic of the ultimate rebellion against tyranny. To that end, we look at the history of the the crushing of the church and the rise of enlightenment values, and the rise of pluralism and diversity and multiculturalism as inherently satanic.

Unknown Speaker 34:40 It's tonight claiming victory after a court told the state of Oklahoma to remove a monument of the 10 commandments from the state capitol. Before the ruling, the satanists wanted to install their own tribute, a pagan idol showing a bearded goat on the Capitol grounds right next to the 10 commandments. We will begin with Lucia All right So is it like Lucian, as in Lucifer? Is that where that? Why you're called that?

Doug Misicko 35:05 Sure as you like.

Unknown Speaker 35:09 Like, is that your birth theme?

Doug Misicko 35:12 No, it's not. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 35:14 So what is it that first drew you to the Satanic Temple?

Doug Misicko 35:19 Well, I helped co found the Satanic Temple. Why? Why? Because it is an embodiment of my deeply held beliefs. And I think there's this distinct need for a counterbalance against the dominant religious privilege in America today.

Unknown Speaker 35:36 So now you're happy because you got the 10 commandments taken down? But do you? Are you still pushing to have the goat with the horns and so on put up on the state capitol grounds?

Doug Misicko 35:47 No, we don't want our monument there without the 10 commandments there. The point all along was that it would compliment and contrast the 10 commandments and reaffirm that we live in a pluralistic nation that respects diversity and religious liberty,

Unknown Speaker 36:02 you have no problem with the 10 commandments standing there next to your devil figure, right?

Doug Misicko 36:07 That's correct. So long is multiple points of view are allowed. There's nothing wrong with a religious monument being up. But that really wasn't the argument that Oklahoma was making. They were saying that it wasn't a religious monument and that the 10 commandments monument served a secular purpose, which is outright false.

Unknown Speaker 36:27 The US Supreme Court found that I mean, the US Supreme Court has already ruled that the 10 commandments, that the displays not only have a religious significance, but also a historical one.

Doug Misicko 36:38 Well, you're talking a different type of issue, because in Oklahoma, they were ruling by the state constitution, not the federal constitution. A totally different issue.

Unknown Speaker 36:48 If you're talking about taxes, it's a moot point it's not that different, but you're right Texas in a different constitution. I've looked at the

Doug Misicko 36:55 state constitution versus federal

Unknown Speaker 36:58 practice law for like a decade to so I I did read them and see a lot of similar words lusion Thank you. Good luck to you.

Doug Misicko 37:06 And I taught you and I taught you that there was a separation between the that there was a difference between the federal constitution state constitution

Unknown Speaker 37:13 thank you for that

Unknown Speaker 37:21 I think when you when you watch that, it's like the face on Tucker Carlson is not the face of an open mind.

Doug Misicko 37:29 It was the face of constipation.

Unknown Speaker 37:32 But I like when a lot of the things you do it's it's a bit tongue in cheek, but it's also really creative and, and smart. I love when it backfires in their face. There was one thing I had read about the pentagram ceremony. Oh, in Los Angeles. Yeah. And I understand that they took a step to counter protest you that backfired?

Doug Misicko 37:55 That I don't know, I wasn't even there. I mean, they they had you sure there was a lot of counter protests there and a lot of a lot of ignorance. And with that comes a lot of death threats. I don't know that that backfires as badly as it should, I think, you know, I think we get a real deplorable response sometimes from people who don't suffer the proper social repercussions. But I think that'll change as time goes on. And people realize what an uphill battle we have and how unjust some of the responses.

Unknown Speaker 38:28 So death threats, a lot of death threats, either their frequent.

Doug Misicko 38:33 I don't I don't look at the emails. I don't get the calls. You can talk to ash over there about calls that come into our headquarters. Yeah. Yeah. But I hear it from people who head up our chapters all the time about different emails they've gotten or different, credible threats that they feel that they've received. And, you know, I mean, it comes with the territory, but it's, it's also, it's also not very nice.

Unknown Speaker 39:01 Okay, so you're from the Midwest. And and now you're,

Doug Misicko 39:05 you're going to say that I'm really from here now. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 39:10 so how long you've been? Have you been in this area?

Doug Misicko 39:13 About 10 years? Okay. And your you worked on fully assimilated. Perfect. So you work in Salem?

Unknown Speaker 39:19 Now? What brought you to Salem?

Doug Misicko 39:23 It was a lot cheaper than in Cambridge, or, or anywhere in Boston. And Salem has certainly it's history regarding the witch hunts. That makes it a real apt location to have a headquarters anyway. And while we were trying to do an event in Boston, a black mass event which we were very clear, it wasn't really a black mass, but a reenactment of a black mass. What's the difference? I'm not sure. Being that we don't subscribe to supernaturalism. Anyways, what's the difference between playing a film like haxon or actually having live actors? I don't know. But we were using it more as like an academic export. For the idea of a black man, it's very clear about this. When we were putting out the idea, there was massive protests from Catholics anyways. So we felt that when we opened our headquarters in Salem, at least, I felt that we needed to be prepared for the worst people with torches and pitchforks and all that, but it really didn't happen at all, I guess, you know, despite how close save on Mr. Boston, the highest religious population there is Unitarian, and they don't give a shit about that kind of thing. And in nobody's really given us a hassle locally, yet at all. So that's one time one time, the one time where, where my expectations were, were not met.

Unknown Speaker 40:43 Uh, you, you do a lot of work in schools and for children, and we have the after school Satan program. If you go on the website for the Satanic Temple, it's really surprising how much how much how much you do in schools and for children. And there's the there's the billboard as well for corporal punishment that says, and I think we might have that image as well. Is this an actual billboard? For corporal punishment?

Doug Misicko 41:14 Yeah, we haven't we have a billboard up in Texas, that that promotes our protect children project. And what that is, is it it offers an exemption for children in schools that have corporal punishment against the kid. So one of our tenants is that the body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone. There's 19 states that still allow administrators to beat children in the schools. In the community where we put the billboard, there was a case within the past five years where a vice principal beat some teenage girls black and blue on their asses. And he wasn't fired at all. In fact, they had a policy where it was, it was supposed to be a same sex being administered in a male administrator wasn't supposed to be a female student to begin with. Instead of taking punitive action against the vice principal, they retroactively changed the rules and said, Okay, a male administrator can be a girl in school.

Unknown Speaker 42:13 So so now we're just talking about the the minutiae of what we can be kids. Right. But I don't know, well, maybe the maybe the male administration can't beat the female students. And I actually spent a year in Florida, my eighth grade year, and they for anyone that doesn't know Does anyone, people all know what corporal punishment is, right? Like, if if you get in trouble at school, you have at least when when I was in Florida, you had the option to do detention for like two weeks, or you could take a paddling you could take, they would bend you over desk, and they would paddle you based on how bad your whatever offense was. So so that that still happens

Doug Misicko 42:56 in the empirical research shows that this is not a good corrective measure that if anything, helps promote behavioral dysfunction, it's it's corporal punishment, this, this does nothing to help the child in any way. It's not, it's not a helpful tool, it's not a helpful measure. And I think what you're really coming down to is some of the fundamental culture wars of religion right here, when we get down to the very basics, and we, we really hammer on these points with people. More often than not, maybe 100% of the time. Now we're met with this, Spare the rod spoil a child bullshit that comes down to biblical foundations. And that's used to justify it. And I feel like that being the case, this is very much in the purview of the religious war, and to claim exemption and privilege away from that type of thing to claim religious privilege to keep our children from being beaten in the schools, in a lot of people warned me, before we rolled out this project, a lot of people closer to me, felt that it was a real mistake to not put this letter of exemption out towards the parents and say that the parents needed to accept this. And I wouldn't accept that because I think if the parents think that they should be beaten by administrators, fuck them, too. You know, it's up to the kids, the kids, no, kids, no, they don't want to be beaten. The kids know that their body is inviolable, at what age? Is it inappropriate to hit somebody as a corrective? You know, I? I mean, that's, that's the big question. If somebody is arguing the benefits of corporal punishment with me, what if I were to punch them in the fucking face and say, All right, well, I'm just trying to teach you a lesson.

Unknown Speaker 44:36 Right? But there are people out there and is that how you respond to the to the people out there who say, listen, we're in this horrible world of political correctness now, and you know, you're gonna call the cops on me if I if I discipline my child, and and they'll defend that corporal punishment as as discipline and they're not going to learn a lesson. sent in any other way. Have you? Have you ever had anybody approached you with that?

Doug Misicko 45:06 No, no, I don't, I don't actually get very cogent arguments in favor of corporal punishment than I anticipated them, you know, but, but for the most part we really do get people in this is a lesson to us all, they are really citing Christian privilege to beat their kids, more so than I ever thought as being a leader of a satanic organization going against this issue. Even doing that in the outset, and putting together this campaign, I didn't think we realized how religiously embedded this idea of corporal punishment as a corrective against children actually is. And I really do feel that if people were to abandon their archaic ideas of superstition, they would be more amenable to the recent cognitive research that shows just how harmful corporal punishment really is.

Unknown Speaker 46:04 Awesome. Because I didn't I, anytime I've looked into something like that, and and your principles towards that, it's always I just kind of, I think, what is exactly what you said, I expected a lot of the reaction to be I'm, you know, it's it's discipline, and that's how they're gonna learn. But I'm also surprised to hear that it's more embedded in this archaic, religious, like, mock,

Doug Misicko 46:33 there's only two arguments, we get that, that it's that it's Christian to do that, and that it worked for whoever you're arguing against, they'll say, wow, my, you know, whoever used to used to beat my ass occasionally, and I needed that. So and I turned out just fine. My argument against that is you did not turn out fine. You, you think it's okay to be children? Clearly not. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 46:57 So your your group is so large, and you have so many supporters? What type of people are you seeing supporting you? I understand a lot of immigrants to the country can relate to what what you're protecting, as well, as you know, same sex couples, what type of people are you hearing from supporting you?

Doug Misicko 47:16 A lot of gay, a lot of transgender, a lot of sex workers and a lot of the disaffected overall, I think our demographics have changed through time. When we first came in to the scene, I think people were used to this kind of old black metal School of Satanism. So it was white males, mostly, you know, around, you know, from the teen years to about 30 years old. And then as it became clear, where we stood on certain issues, we really had a shift towards a lot of females coming into the Satanic Temple, there was a time when, when well over, well over 50% of new membership was was female around college age. And then it didn't take long, especially with things like the pink mass, where we got a lot of a lot of the LGBTQ community. And and I think that's a natural fit for them anyways, they're, you know, they're, they're beat up upon by traditional religious organizations. And we're obviously a place where that's not not even a question, there's not even a difference. It's not a matter of of toleration, that that is that is itself an insulting term. It's something where it's, it's, nobody cares about that within the within the Satanic Temple at all. But I think now we're really reaching a spot with the Satanic Temple where we're seeing a lot of a lot of people from different minority groups. So a lot of people of color and that type of thing, who feel who have a better grasp of the, of the history of the church to not feel an affinity for, for in the least, in this has really been a haven for them. And I think in that way, especially with, with Trump being elected, we're finding a real, a real boom and a diverse population coming to the Satanic Temple and finding kind of a cultural identity in a home.

Unknown Speaker 49:14 So these are the seven tenants up here. And I was reading an article the other day about you and the temple, and the author of the article said, you know, I'm a Satanist, and I didn't even realize it. So is that is that kind of what you find that, that people who aren't necessarily religious are actually Satanists? And don't call themselves that?

Doug Misicko 49:39 Yeah, we also get those was a lot of people who see that these are very straightforward, very rational, kind of humanistic values. In for that reason, they don't understand why it would be Satanism. But if you understand kind of the history of modern Satanism and the romantic literary movement in how it was building kind of a new mythological cultural backdrop for enlightenment values, that was very satanic that was, you know, you're coming from Western civilization being dominated by the Catholic Church to being a civilization that had to embrace pluralism and diversity. And that was very much against the kind of theocratic values, the feudalistic values put forward by the church. And so to that end, enlightenment values in and of themselves kind of define satanic values, and you have to be able to not only discard this superstition and say, you were, it's one thing to say, You're a non believer, but it's another thing to actually embrace blasphemy. And you'll be surprised at how many atheists still seem to be beholden to a kind of a kind of unconscious superstition, where these symbols in the names still seem to have an inherent value in their minds and can't be amended in any way. Where what is satanic needs to be defined as the absolute evil and absolute cruelty, which also implies the opposite, that the Christian religion are the arbiters of what is morally true and correct. And I think that's what needs to be contested in that what's that's what needs to be challenged. And you can't do that. If you can't accept the notion that different symbols can mean different things to different people in different times in different places. It's there's a certain semantic logic behind this, and it's a I admit, it's a major mindfuck to a lot of people, but it's a very necessary one. And I think the confusion we cause is all for the better,

Unknown Speaker 51:47 Lucien gray faction. What what is that?

Doug Misicko 51:52 Yeah, I referenced the, the pushback we have against the Satanic Panic from the 80s and 90s, which actually never Satanic Panic never actually ended, there's still this prevalent notion of satanic cults committing crimes, and you'll see bullshit stories from the Daily Mirror and they in the sun from the UK at about a weekly basis about satanic cults pulling some kind of ritual sacrifice or murder or whatever else or these suspicions that satanic cults are, are guilty of all types of crimes that are taking place in what what's really troubling is that the this conspiracy this notion is kind of is kind of helped along is kind of validated by this insane. By this insane counterculture within licensed mental health practitioners that still primarily focused on the idea of multiple personality disorder, in the idea that certain traumas are so so traumatic, that they can't be assimilated into the mind and are relegated to separate compartments of the mind that then branch off into separate personalities in somebody. And in that they need to do things like regressive hypnosis, to draw forth these personalities to allow them to assimilate into the core personality. And recall the memories that brought them into existence to begin with, in what has been found time and time again, by responsible research psychologists is that when people undergo this type of therapy, they tend to confabulate memories that are not at all true, but often, remarkably, match the assumptions of the therapist who is doing the regression to begin with. And they come up with all kinds of bizarre narratives, including the idea that they were abused by Satanists, the idea that they were abducted by aliens, the idea that they've recalled memories of past lives. And all of this, as I said, usually matches the therapist assumptions. And this is a very discredited idea within cognitive science and research psychology. Nonetheless, organizations like the APA, the American Psychiatric Association, have failed to confront it within their licensing boards and have allowed these kinds of delusional conspiracies, therapists to run amok and in really instill people with crippling delusions, paranoid delusions that will affect the rest of their lives and in way upon them, traumas that never existed. And in we fight back against people who are licensed to do these types of things, people who take people who are mentally vulnerable, and in hurt them with this type of therapy, and we're fighting to try to get the APA to revise their standards. We're fighting against licensing boards to try to get them to revoke the licenses of people who engage in this practice. And we investigated a case not too long ago, our own original research where we found there was a case of a woman, Gigi Jordan in New York, a multimillionaire mother who murdered her own eight year old autistic child, and she murdered him on the assumption that she was saving him from a life of torture by satanic cults. And prior to murdering her kid, she had consulted with a woman Ellen lachter. A psychologist, a clinical psychologist in California licensed who on her own website talks about illuminati conspiracy theories talks about witchcraft abuse, satanic ritual abuse, all these kinds of 1980s 1990s debunk conspiracy theories that we feel there's a very

credible basis to say that if Gigi Jordan had consulted a non conspiracist therapist, somebody who would have disabused over conspiracy theory, she might not have murdered her child. We put a petition against Ellen lachter to have her investigated by our licensing board about a year ago, and about nine months after we put in the petition, California, sent us an unsigned letter that simply said that they looked into our claims and found no merit to them. And life carries on and Ellen lachter is still is still licensed, I feel somebody like Ellen lacked or should have her license revoked simply by merit of the public statement she makes about conspiracy theories that are easily disproven by anybody who has any general grasp of reality. Anyways, that that's what gray faction is. And that's what gray faction does. And it's one of the most important things that the Satanic Temple does. And it gets so little media attention, because it's such a large topic. And it's not given to sound bites that simply, you know, a lot of the media likes to cover us when it can be summarized in the headline. And we do get a lot of that gray faction is so much more complex. And it really deserves a lot of attention. So if you have the time and you have the inclination, look at Gray faction.org. That's very important to us. And if you think you can be any help to it, there's contact information on that site.

Unknown Speaker 57:18 Great. Excellent.

Doug Misicko 57:20 Thank you very much for asking about that. Yeah, of course.

Unknown Speaker 57:23 I just want to ask about a sort of bring up the Charlottesville event that happened last week and how awful it was and and how everyone now is is the topic is sort of about Confederate statues, and should they be removed? And and should they change the name of Faneuil Hall because FanDuel is has a racist past same thing with yaki way, and they're talking about changing the name of yaki way. How do you feel about that, Lucien? Does it? Is it relate in any way to your work?

Doug Misicko 57:57 Well, there's a question of government speech versus First Amendment protected access to a free speech is owned by people who privately donate monuments or whatever else. And I think there's a real legitimate question as to whether your government should be endorsing a Confederate monument. That that I think, is a legitimate, I would hate to see this carry over into the private domain, I would hate to see people burning down Confederate museums or whatever else I can see anybody, even of whatever political persuasion, having an interest in seeing those types of items and not seeing them destroyed in in even Nazi memorabilia or whatever else, having preservation for historical purposes, who the fuck would have thought that we would have been dealing with people self identifying as Nazis today? That's still something I have a difficult time wrapping my head around. But there still is there still are historical relics related to that time, and I think they should be preserved. But as I said that question of, of government speech and do you want something in in on public grounds, a Confederate Memorial standing there? In then I think it is a legitimate question of Is this what the government is endorsing as an appropriate point of view? And then I think that's a legitimate question of whether it should be taken down or not, if it is antithetical to the liberal democratic values that we hold dear today. And it but I would like to see this go forward in a non violent, legalistic direction. I really have a problem with this idea that we should all run out in punch Nazis. I mean, you have a militant group of people who feel validated by getting punched in the face you have the type of white trash shithead thugs who will go out to bars Looking for a fucking fight, you don't go out and punch them. It gives them a good time. You know, if, if anything, I really wish everybody who would show up to counter protest, the Nazis in the KKK tomorrow, they should be met with mockery and ridicule. In an ideal setting, you would have the KKK marching in you would have the counter protesters dressed with dressed like them, but with the with the false book teeth and playing banjos and imitating sodomy with their cousins and everything else, and everybody just laughing their asses off at them, because nothing will make them wither away more than that, if you go out and you give them the fight that they knew they were going to get. And they thought they were looking for the one that makes them feel like they're really achieving something, then it's a degenerative spiral. It's a generative spiral of violence and dysfunction. And I fear we're kind of already irreparably on that course right now, but I hope not. No, I

Unknown Speaker 1:01:03 think I think we've been on that course since since the Civil War. I mean, there's always there's there's always some some cycle that keeps going with that some

Doug Misicko 1:01:12 I think instead of amazing them, we should glitter bomb them. I think that would offend them more. But if the message was look at you fragile, pathetic little shits, I mean, they they can't, you can't just walk away from that if you if you get punched in the face and you get back up again, they're they're going to feel very energized. Everybody's laughing at them as they should be. Yeah, that is far more difficult to recover from. And if you read Steven Pinker's book, the better angels of our nature, I feel like that's one of the best books of modern times. He was talking about the death of dueling in how dueling really died out when everybody started laughing at it, everybody started making.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:00 Right. Right. That's that's an interesting exercise. If you were to look back at all of these, like antiquated things that have happened over history, and when they start becoming a mockery, then they start

Doug Misicko 1:02:10 doing for a long time was a practice that people objected again, say they, they were very people were very upset, you know, people were going out and they were getting killed in these duels, you know, based on honor or whatever else. And in according to history, it wasn't until the younger generation just started laughing. And in doing mock duels themselves that the dueling practice became untenable thereafter.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:34 I mean, we got a question up there. We're gonna mic down here, because

Unknown Speaker 1:02:39 it's okay. You can just yell Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:43 Regards to the statues and where you are with us? Where is your understanding of where do you draw the line between understanding the historical importance

Unknown Speaker 1:02:53 of statues and good bonds?

Unknown Speaker 1:02:57 George Washington, whatever. All slavers, nothing. But still,

Unknown Speaker 1:03:02 they have the trades, right?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:03 We're all mixed up, like dark. Right? So where's your understanding of the start rolling back these public figures and things that are built as monuments and architectural architectural displays

Unknown Speaker 1:03:19 to now we should not have any of them just because of the cost?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:26 So where do you draw that line? Where are you under saying that?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:30 Because it's a question for Lucien mostly, it seems,

Doug Misicko 1:03:33 is it a question for me? I really, I really think the distinction is between government and private speech. I'm still what a lot of people would consider a free speech absolutist, and I've gotten a lot of shit for that lately, especially when they attributed anti Milo or Milo, whoever the fuck that guy is protests to the Satanic Temple. And I reached out to Breitbart. And I said, that wasn't us that we weren't protesting against his free speech, because we don't. And a lot of people were upset. And they were saying that I was defending a man who was saying certain things I never read his material I stand on free speech is a principle. The line I draw is between when the government is endorsing a certain type of speech, as opposed to private, if somebody wants to open up a museum where they have nothing but Nazi memorabilia. I don't think we have anything to say about that. You don't have to go to it. Nobody has to agree with it. But what if, if the Boston City Council decides that every every preliminary invocation is going to be given by a Nazi? I think we would we would then have to march and we would all have a real problem with that. Speaking of which, the

Unknown Speaker 1:04:51 public spaces

Doug Misicko 1:04:52 that's the issue and I think that's that's the only legitimate issue. I think if private speech, I want to know Want to know when an asshole is an asshole? I don't want somebody to feel in if somebody is an asshole and a good person at the same time? Well, sure, I mean, your, your expression is I, I stand by a free expression, I stand by free speech. And that's not to say, even when they call me a free speech absolutist, I'm actually standing by the caveat that we do have on free speech today, there are caveats related to fighting words, which is kind of a gray area, but the courts have done fairly well on that. There's caveats related to slander, in in copyright infringement and those types of things. And I often I feel that those are all completely legitimate. And those are things that should be that should be deliberated on, and people should have legal recourse on those, I just don't feel that there needs to be further prohibitions upon free speech right now. And a lot of people feel that that is an endorsement for every type of speech that might come out of that. It just isn't. I stand by the ACLU, his decision to defend, even hateful speech, I think they're doing the right thing. They're staying viewpoint neutral, they're standing on a principle, you don't stand on a principle only when it's comfortable. It doesn't mean anything, if you don't do it, when it's also when it also hurts when it also goes against your values. Free speech has a very, it's it's, it's the bedrock of liberal democracy. And we need to preserve that even in even in the worst of times, and this is one of those times right now. And I feel that on balance, it's for the better,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:45 it seems to me like the like the the satanic thing to do, in this case about the Confederate statues would be to erect a Martin Luther King, Jr. statue right next to us

Doug Misicko 1:06:58 something to realize about the Satanic Temple is that there hasn't been a time where we've been doing an event in the public forum, where there hasn't been some religious group that has claimed that what we're doing is hate speech against them. And they say that, even though we might not be calling for violence against them, even though we might not be stating these things directly, are very identification of Satan. This causes acrimony and puts them in a, in a position of hostility against them, that that that's making a mockery of them in that, in that what we're doing should be shut down on those grounds as hate speech. And I see that as a very slippery slope, if you're going to say that I'm offended, I might not be directly threatened or directly slandered. But but I'm offended in therefore this free speech needs to be shut down. I think that's a very dangerous territory to dip into, and it will bite us all in the ass eventually. And ultimately, whoever benefits is, whoever is whoever already has the power and control to be the arbiter of what is determined to fall within those parameters of, of so called hate speech or not.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:11 One last question I had for you. And that coming from that point, it like, so many people would believe in a lot of the things you're saying, but may but when they first hear the Satanic Temple, they're turned off. Have you? Have you ever? Like why would you choose to have the name Satan? Behind you know, what you're doing where you could just come up with some, you know, generic, less offensive name to the average person and they may support you,

Doug Misicko 1:08:38 but we couldn't because it also means something to us. It's not something we could sit and deliberate and say, Well, we're gonna make up a different deity because we grew up in the Judeo Christian culture into us Satan is the icon of rebellion against these kinds of norms, this kind of mythic backdrop that says that there's one right way to live your life and this is what it is the the, the the backdrop that says there's there's an ultimate power that's offended by your your sexuality or whatever else. To us, since we were growing up, what we've embraced has been Satan and just call it something else would be untrue to ourselves.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:29 Well, thank you very much, everybody for joining us here tonight.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:38 That's a 111 Quick question for Lucy and I know that Tim was particularly terrified to be here this evening. I just want you to just assure him that you did not steal his soul during this.

Doug Misicko 1:09:53 I'm gonna kill him. Oh,

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