Podcasts/Sacred Tension-Sacred Tension Lucien Newsweekbhy34

Background

Podcast title: Sacred Tension: Orgies, Cults, and Lies feat. Lucien Greaves STEPHEN BRADFORD LONG Published: August 20, 2022

Show notes (as published)

NOVEMBER 14, 2021 ~ STEPHEN BRADFORD LONG In this episode of Sacred Tension, Lucien Greaves returns to discuss every allegation of fascism and antisemitism against him and The Satanic Temple.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS people, tst, satanic temple, free speech, claims, article, cult, activism, twitter, talking, satanists, satanic, feel, religion, milo, thought, newsweek, question, podcast, true

Transcript

SPEAKERS Stephen Bradford Long, Lucien Greaves

00:00

You're listening to a rock candy podcast. Hey, I'm Andrew. And I'm John. Our show magnified pod is the only podcast that discusses culture, religion, politics, and deep dives into the discographies of the bands that shaped a generation of 90s youth group kids, check out magnified pod on the rock candy Podcast Network and wherever you get your podcasts

Stephen Bradford Long: 00:34

This is Sacred Tension, the podcast about the discipline of asking questions. My name is Steven Bradford Long and we are here on the Rock Candy podcast network. For more shows like this one, go to rockcandyrecordings.com. All right. Well, we have Lucien Greaves back on the show. But before we get to that, as always, I have to thank my patrons. They are my personal lords and saviors, and they enable my crippling content creation addiction. So for this week, I have to thank Jeremy13, Sarah, Justin, Paul, and Rabbit Waller, thank you all so much. If you want to join their number, just go to patreon.com/stevenbradfordlong. That sound was Lucien Greaves, dropping something in the background. And if you want to join their number, just go to patreon.com/stevenbradfordlong and for $1 A month or $5 a month, you get extra content every single week, including my House of Heretics live show. You can drop in on the chat it is every Wednesday morning at 11am. Timothy McPherson, former Salvation Army officer and I discuss all kinds of things. Whatever's going on in the world. We talk about movies, we talk about religion, we talk about politics, we talk about mental health, just whatever is interesting to us in that moment we discuss and it also really, really helps the show. Also, the show is sponsored by thesatanictemple.tv. If you enjoy the occult, if you enjoy rituals, live streams, lectures, there's all kinds of stuff on thesatanictemple.tv. And you can get one month free using my promo code SACREDTENSION all caps, no space at checkout. And finally, one of the best ways to support this show is to leave a five star review on Apple podcasts ,that tells our digital overlords that this show is worth sharing with others. So I'm going to share a five star review. This one is from Great Britain by Georgia Buns, and Georgia says brilliant just listened to the episode with Katie Herzog loved the conversation host knows how to have a really interesting, insightful, intelligent discussion. Short and sweet and very kind. That was also one of my favorite shows. By the way, my interview with Katie Herzog that I did last year. She's a fascinating grumpy lesbian political commentator and fellow podcaster. She does the Blocked and Reported podcast. I highly recommend everyone go listen to that one. It's called Getting Cancelled with Katie Herzog. All right, well, please just take a moment to go leave a five star review on Apple podcasts. It really helps. All right, with all of that out of the way. Lucien Greaves, welcome back. Hello. I feel like it's been a bit longer than usual. Since you've been on

Doug Misicko: 03:34

Time, it's lost meaning for me last couple years,

Stephen Bradford Long: 03:37

It really has no odor. Is it just me? Or is 2021 Harder than 2020? Like, I feel like this worse this year has been more terrible, more dreadful than 2020. For whatever reason

Doug Misicko claims he has "stop[ped] really caring what people think"

Doug Misicko: 03:52

Oh, no, I knew I knew what I was getting into. As soon as the pandemic started, I thought that I was looking at some long term changes in my personality that I might not be able to roll back. And I was more afraid that I'd get comfortable with it. And I feel like that's the point I've gotten at now. But it's similar to like when people say enough rotten things about you on the internet or whatever. And you stop really caring what people think. And people always applaud that notion of just getting over what other people think about you or whatever. But being the recipient of that and you know, having gone forward with a lot of my projects, you know, not caring what the opposition would think but still seeing people who should know better say terrible things. I can tell you that you lose an essential part of yourself when you really truly stop caring what people think because they burned you out so much on their outrage in their baseless criticisms.

Stephen Bradford Long: 04:48

You know, I I really relate to that. Honestly. Everyone's like, no, just embrace being yourself and don't care what other people think online and I'm like, No, I actually care a lot. It, it is in my nature to care a lot about what other people think of me. Also, I think it's in human nature to care a lot about what other people think of us. And if we don't, then we're fucking sociopaths. And so the that having that ability to care what people on the internet, think of me having that burned out of me doesn't feel very healthy.

Doug Misicko: 05:22

Like if you go to sleep early when shitty people dislike you for who you are, but when shitty people are trying to frame you as somebody completely different from who you are, you know, that's when it's infuriating and frustrating and everything else.

Stephen Bradford Long: 05:37

Yeah, I have a couple of Medium articles going around about me, you know, kind of critiquing my work. And I've, I've noticed how it has made me cynical of everything that I see online. When I when I watch how people I know, people- and some people who I consider to be friends who have just been dragged and trashed and lied about online so much. It makes me just question everything I see online because I, I now know how easy it is for lies to spread. And so the end result is that I just don't believe anything. And I don't know, if that is a healthy headspace to be in.

Doug Misicko: 06:28

Right, I know exactly what you're saying. Or when you're deeply skeptical of your relationships, your interpersonal relationships, because you've gotten burned too badly too many times. And of course, the whole social dynamic for me in the past 10 years doing Satanic Temple changed dramatically from the time prior to that. And it's it's a pretty difficult adjustment to come to that place where even people close to you can treat you as an object to a vehicle for their own self aggrandizement or whatever else to cash you out as a friend, you know, for more hits online or whatever. But you can't help but, but change a bit when you experience quite a bit of that. And not all of it's going to be for the better.

Discussion on the Newsweek article

Stephen Bradford Long: 07:16

Yeah, I relate to everything you're saying right now. It isn't pleasant. I mean, part of it is I guess, just the reality of being a public figure. Part of it is just being a content creator. I wouldn't say I'm a public figure and not to the degree that you are but I am a content- you know, I've I've watched people who I thought were friends just turn on me so hard. And and it's it's a very challenging thing to experience. But okay, so all of that aside, there is a new article out about TST, and none of us want to talk about it, but we might as well fucking talk about it. It came out on Newsweek. And it is- hold on the title is, is on the honestly, the title is the best thing about it. Let me let me pull this up real fast. I have it.

Doug Misicko: 08:08

Well, in case you didn't know, it was also authored by a Christian writer who started at Newsweek, like a month ago. It looks to be an elderly lady, and she's written about sexual purity from the Christian perspective, as well as other Christian writings.

Stephen Bradford Long: 08:25

Oh, so that's why there's such a big stink about sex positivity and TST.

Doug Misicko: 08:30

Yeah, yeah, that was a thread I don't even know. I didn't know why she wanted to pull at first until I looked up her background, but she's she's really apparently offended by the idea of sex positivity in general.

Stephen Bradford Long: 08:46

Yeah. So the title of this article is orgies, harassment, fraud, Satanic Temple rocked- Hold on God dammit, my phone just went went dead. orgies harassment fraud, Satanic Temple rocked by Accusations, Lawsuit.

Doug Misicko: 09:03

So there were no accusations of orgies. I'm not sure what accusations of harassment they were talking about in there. The accusation of fraud is a claim about a claim. And there were several claims about claims in this article here was there were claims about sexual abuse, but there were no actual claims of sexual abuse. And I'm not aware of these claims. They have a quote from somebody saying that they'd received all these more than anecdotal complaints about sexual abuse within TST or whatever. And I thought, Well, why haven't I heard about these and why didn't the journalist try to talk to anybody who might be one of the people actually making the complaint rather than secondhand quote saying that, Oh, these complaints are somewhere but fraud. There's- I don't even think there's an accusation of fraud and anything said in the article. Yeah,

Stephen Bradford Long: 09:56

That one was- that one confused me.

Doug Misicko: 09:59

Also, by I'm gonna tell people right now tell them we've- we've demanded a retraction from Newsweek it- because it's so egregious and you know, people were already saying, well what are the optics of it so you're gonna sue Newsweek or whatever and I'm, why not, you know, well you're the Free Speech guys. Well we still are, you know read my articles about free speech we always make room for defamation. Exactly. You know when it's provable inaccuracies like this and there's some egregious provable bullshit in this article. Like they have a quote from somebody calling herself salami, I guess and from Pensacola saying-

Stephen Bradford Long: 10:38

Salomé, I think it's Salomé, but salami, sure, yes, the salami works.

Doug Misicko: 10:42

But salami claims that she was thrown out of TST, after asking me why I was using TST money to pursue a personal lawsuit against Twitter for having suspended my account. And this was just placed in the article and her statement taken at face value. Whereas the fact of the matter is, that conversation never took place. And if somebody had come to me and said, Why is TST use- Why are using TST money for this personal suit, I would have merely explained, well, we have pro-bono representation for one thing. So TST resources aren't being expended. But for another, it wasn't a lawsuit about my personal account getting suspended, although that fact was rolled into the complaint as evidence of disparate treatment. The whole story was- is that somebody tweeted that somebody needed to burn down our headquarters, and Cory Feldman's washed out child actor retweeted it. And he's got a bit of a following. So it started to get to get horrifying to see that there was traction growing for this idea. And it's very clearly a tweet that runs afoul of Twitter's Terms of Service. So I reported the tweet, Twitter came back said, this does not violate our Terms of Service. I retweeted the tweet and asked my audience to also report the tweet because Twitter wasn't looking at my reports, for some reason, then Twitter suspended not only my account, but the main TST account, temporary basis for the main TST account by association with me, permanent suspension on my account. And they said what I had done was targeted harassment against the person who would call for our headquarters to get burned down. And now this, to us seemed like a worthwhile battle to fight. Like, we didn't feel for a moment that another religious group would be treated that way. And we didn't want to normalize this idea that people can call for us to be killed publicly, and build this idea that there is a general approval of that, you know, fighting back against that I felt serve the broader interests of our community, without question. So there was nothing about that, quote, that was true. And when the journalist reached out to me initially, she asked me questions, but she didn't ask me questions about anything that she ended up including in her article, she started out really hung up on the various corporate entities that TST has built up over the time that we've had this organization. And, you know, she clearly saw something nefarious in the fact that we have United Federation of Churches, LLC, Reason Alliance TST- TST Inc, you know, The Satanic Temple Inc. And then things like TST TV, you know, the- the the other enterprise that runs The Satanic Estate and things like that. And I explained to her well, we started out as an LLC, because we weren't Tech, we weren't religiously tax exempt, and we hadn't asked for it. We went with United Federation of Churches, because, you know, we might have been looking to work in our denomination only and, you know, not be written off applying for something or whatever, just, you know, straightforward with the name, the Satanic Temple 10 years ago, you know, we're the ones who really broke the ice, you know, so nine Federation churches seemed safe. And then we realized we didn't have the same kind of access to religious accommodations as other religious groups. So we had to fight he just broke up really fast.

Stephen Bradford Long: 14:39

You- You- You- Didn't you realize that you didn't have the same access to what?

Doug Misicko: 14:45

are two accommodations made for religious entities, whereas were some things required a 501(3)(c), and one of those things was doing after school clubs. So at the time we were doing the After School Satan clubs, we needed a 501(c), (c)(3), we set up Reason Alliance. And the mission of Reason Alliance is to support the Satanic Temple, it's very openly that way. And then the Satanic Temple Inc, came along as a result of the IRS recognizing us as IRS tax exempt, we need to separate, we need to set up an entity for that. So she keeps going over this and keeps trying to, and she was not very bright. You know, like I talked to her at length, and she wasn't comprehending a lot of things. And I was telling her like, look, Judicial Watch has looked into us, and they're definitely not on our side. You know, every time we go into court and do discovery, our opposition thinks maybe they'll find something in these corporate documents, corporate structure, tax returns and everything. They don't, you know, we've gone through this again, and again,

Stephen Bradford Long: 15:52

What's- what's Judicial Watch?

Doug Misicko: 15:55

Judicial Watch is this right-wing organization that likes to catch what they deemed to be progressive, liberal, socialist communist groups. And in, you know, they do like public records requests. That's pretty much all they do. And then they they try to scandalize whatever they find. And then Judicial Watch's case, they were looking into our corporate structure. And they came up with this narrative about how the Obama administration fast tracked our 501(c)(3) for Reason Alliance.

Stephen Bradford Long: 16:27

Therefore, Obama's a Satanist. So that's what that means.

Doug Misicko: 16:31

Right, right. In Forbes magazine, you know, a tax expert looked at all our stuff and wrote a- wrote a article based on the Judicial Watch press release. And he was saying that, you know, there's nothing wrong with our corporate structure, there's, you know, nothing to see there. And even though it might be confusing, that's just the way it is. So I'm getting all this outreach from this Newsweek lady. And finally, I said to her an email, I wrote to her, and I said, "Look, all this noise about our corporate structure, I would call it a conspiracy theory, if there were a theory behind it." But I told her, as far as I know, it's just people saying that they're confused. And they're not experts on corporate structure to begin with. I was like, if you want to talk to any of the lawyers who helped set this up for the accountants to help clear this up for you fine. But I hope before you make with some story that makes it look like there's something wrong here, you least have an idea of what's wrong? And what would be right. You know, first, tell us how you think we're nefariously benefiting from this corporate structure that we have. And then tell us knowing the evolution of the organization and why we have these different entities? How what you would do to make it any different. And that's when she shut up about that. And that's pretty much when she stopped asking me questions about anything at all, because I think she was worried that it would take away her ability to write the story that she wanted. And ultimately, she just wanted to write salacious claims that she dug up from the internet and had people repeat to her who had written them before. And absolutely, and this is way outside the bounds of Newsweek. So I'm guidelines which they put on their website, you know, they not giving us any opportunity to respond to any of these things. And even not, you know, tracking down the sources, like I said, publishing hearsay claims claims about claims is just to me, it seems really egregious, and I'm not sure where we're at with the retraction demand now, but you would have thought she'd have been a little careful, because she also spoke at length with our lawyer to begin with and quoted our lawyer in the piece.

Stephen Bradford Long: 18:48

That's, uh, yeah, I was really surprised about that. Like, how did you fuck this up so much? You talked to Matt, you talked to Lucien like that. That's like, it was clearly deliberate.

Doug Misicko: 19:02

It was a- it was- right. Well, we've made the point in the demand for retraction too, that the story itself is terribly inconsistent- claims very inconsistent things about us at one point you have as being called this polyamorous social justice warrior Club,

Stephen Bradford Long: 19:21

Which is fine, which would be fine. There's nothing wrong with the-

Doug claims to refute being "cozy with the alt-right"

Doug Misicko: 19:25

-other hand, but but you also have the claim that we're cozy with the alt-right, or whatever it is, well, in this claim that there's pictures of leaders in, you know, with with alt-right leaders and stuff like that, and I'm like, "What pictures are we talking about?" Like, how do you make a claim, like, did the reporter actually see any of these pictures, or did she just hear that or what? Like it? There were several other things that that were just totally inconsistent as well. That led us to say in the last or like, it's clear that the only thing consistent in the article is that it just lists disparaging claims against TST. So it's very difficult to avoid a conclusion of actual malice, which is something you would have to prove in a defamation case.

Stephen Bradford Long: 20:15 Yeah. I'm interested about the potential objection that well, aren't you the free speech people? Why are you asking for a retraction and I just like want to clarify for everyone. That is Twitter logic, that is the- that is- that is like teenage right wing troll Twitter logic, that like- that, that level of free speech stupidity has nothing to do with free speech law in the United States. A reach demanding a retraction has nothing to do with the foundational principle of free speech

Doug Misicko: 20:54

Well enough, like I said, if anybody reads my writing about free speech, I cover defamation. And I also say, in the articles that I've written, that what I'm arguing for isn't less restrictions on free speech than we have now. I'm really worried it comes to free speech, I'm usually arguing for the status quo, I'm usually arguing skeptically against further restricting free speech, you know, more so than the standards we have right now. You know, defamation-caused violence, things like that. Like, I'm not, I don't think I'm appropriately cast aside as the Free Speech absolutist, they say I am I know, there's, there's certain scenarios, you know, if you, if, if you say, you know, kill them, you know, and the crowd rushes over and kills them or whatever, you, you're gonna bear some blame, you're gonna bear some responsibility, if you publish a pamphlet claiming that your neighbor's a pedophile, and there's no reason to think so, you know, there should be consequences for that kind of thing. And I feel like when you're a news outlet is as large as Newsweek, and you do something as irresponsible, as publishing our article like this, you know, in in, you know, clearly, there was no effort made to validate or disconfirm any of this or even ask us about the claims to that is also egregious, and, you know, results in real, real reputational harm.

Stephen Bradford Long: 22:28

Yeah. For anyone interested in the free speech subject, I really recommend everyone go listen to my interviews with Adam Goldstein, from FIRE, which is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. And they're fantastic and Adam's great. And he he's a free speech lawyer and lays out a lot of what free speech is and isn't in the United States. So yeah, definitely go check that out. Yeah. I think the impression I had while reading it was I felt like the goal of the article was to make was was that Satanists being in squabbles has kind of a carnival freak-show quality to some people, and they just wanted to make Satanists look stupid. It was a carnival sideshow. Like look at these freaks over here.

Doug Misicko: 23:19

Well, it's funny how our detractors just jumped right in for the opportunity to be in this- in this piece and have their voices heard or whatever. That's literally- they're literally teaming up with like a pro-abstinence Christian authors simply looking to take down Satanists.

Stephen Bradford Long: 23:37

Yes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, the other thing that stood out to me in this article was, you know, reader perception versus reality, the perception is still that we are primarily an activist organization, and that we are atheists pretending to be Satanists. And, you know, the plot twist. And the reality is, no, we're actually Satanists who happen to be atheists, that that's kind of how I personally frame it. It's like, No, we are a religious organization. Satanist is a deeply held religious identity.

Doug Misicko: 24:13

Oh, there was also the absurd line in that in that article saying that it's unclear whether we actually practice the abortion ritual, and it's like, well, this is a documented fact, you know, this is something that's going to court now. Yeah, this is something that's under oath, sworn into affidavits. And, you know, again, the journalist didn't ask us about any skepticism she may have had regarding that. But it's like, why would you be skeptical about somebody's religious claim of such to begin with? And if you are, why wouldn't you ask? And, you know, how did that make it? How did that make it past an editor?

Stephen Bradford Long: 24:51

Yeah, there's an extraordinary lack of curiosity in the whole thing and, you know, I, so- I do a lot of work in Satanic Ministry, which is kind of the, for audience- for people in the audience that's like basically the clergy of the Satanic Temple and it is. So, it is, it has become- it is so clear and so obvious to me that- that this organization has a religious life, there is- there is a religious life to this organization that is core to TST that is like that, that religious identity and that religious life is central to TST and the activism, the activism flows from it and that's- that's how I see it and it's so, it's almost jarring to me when I when I see these claims of you know, you're you're just activists and it's really like this article framed TST naming they're renaming the chapters, congregations as almost like a cynical power move as a publicity stunt to appear more like a religion. And what's never considered is that no, you're right, she are a really good

Doug Misicko: 26:05

she said that explicitly. She said that, I believe she said that. We set up the congregation structure in order to appear like a mainstream church, whereas the reality is, we spent years putting together the ordination program, we didn't just put something online saying hey, buy a Ordained Minister card from the Satanic Temple. No, you have to be referred, you know, yet you have a letter of recommendation, we have- we have online coursework you have to go through and we have to be sufficiently convinced that you truly understand where we're coming from and are worthy of representing this and that you aren't just coming into it for the activism was- which some of the people she spoke to did, who got disillusioned with TST and then started making false claims against us. One of them, who runs a site all day long, apparently doesn't work, you know, just- just disparages TST all day long on the internet and makes up bullshit claims about us being a pyramid scheme and stuff like that. Actually said, you know, join TST and thought the Satanism part was cheesy, they wanted to get into their, Yes, ya know, their activism or whatever, that I can't express enough, if that's your interest, just don't fucking join, you know, go to your other, go to your other political groups that deal with those issues you want, you know, if, if you don't understand the Satanism, we're a part of here, then then don't join, it's not for you. Or if you're not sure, about our position on free speech and our position on other things, or, you know, the general things that we have acted on consistently, and we feel in line with the tenants[sic], it's fine if you don't agree with it, but maybe don't fucking join either. You know, don't don't come in and act like we should change the entire organization to fit your unprincipled position that you can't reconcile on both sides of a debate and say, like, oh, the rules only apply, you know, this much on this side and this much on the other. You know, that's not how social standards work. Yeah, no, well, operating society, you know, it's just not how it goes. And I think the Satanic Temple, it was trying to build more longevity than these than these political activist flare-ups that we have, that don't have a direction just kind of want to tear things down, and don't really have constructive input on anything at all. And that's what I think really kind of distinguishes us. And you know, we just don't need it we don't need we don't need to build membership like that. Either. We don't need to pull in, you know, low quality people who don't really care what the beliefs are, or, or whether it's going to look good as a as a slogan or quote on their Facebook page or whatever else like

Stephen Bradford Long: 29:06

mean activism. Right. We don't do mean activism. It is the activism. I feel like the activism that TST does is slow and hard and the long game and I can't imagine anything more diametrically different from meme activism than that. Right, right.

Doug Misicko: 29:26

Yeah, exactly. We're the nor the facile sloganeering that we have that, you know, has it hasn't really gotten us anywhere, to be quite honest, you know, but, you know, the, she was talking to people in the Newsweek article, who claimed that we were a pyramid scheme, and she had started with that, too. She talked about that with me. And I asked her then, like, explain to me what that means. Because when you have an organization that doesn't charge people for membership, doesn't charge dues, doesn't do tithing, in- does not advocate for proselytizing. You know, we don't tell people you got to bring people in. In fact, at this point, I feel like might need to trim back a little bit, you know, get the people out who are disappointed that this is actually a non-theistic religion when they thought that they were joining up with some kind of clever ploy or something, just go, just go, you know, so I was telling her, you know, none of this adds up to any coherent claim of being a pyramid scheme. So what does that mean? She abandoned that too. But she's still decided to, quote at face value. So many things said, by the person who throws out the bogus claim that we're a pyramid scheme that can't be validated by, you know, any even not even not even a definition of what what, what is meant by TST equals conspiracy theory.

Stephen Bradford Long: 30:55

And as far as I know, no one and everyone in TST as volunteers at every level, basically, like, I might be wrong about that.

"Where'd the money go? It went towards the fucking campaigns"

Doug Misicko: 31:06

And, but we will well, you know, we are content creators. So on TST TV, they, they make money. Absolutely. And we, at our headquarters, we do have we have people hired, you know, and certainly, you know, we have contractors and things like that, and, you know, definitely have our lawyers, things like that. So we can't say that nobody's employed off of this. But also, it's like, this question of, well, what where does the money go? Like, how much did you lose? And how, how do you lose money on this on this operation here, like, if you look at our campaigns, we genuinely tried to estimate what we will need for a campaign to be successful. Right. And sometimes it's very difficult, you know, like, we're going to be suing Texas $200,000 probably not enough, when all is said and done, we can fundraise later, you know what I mean by $200,000? Up front, that's a lot of money, too. So, you know, we went in for 200k. And we're pursuing Texas now we're going to have more lawsuits coming up? No doubt, you know, but if you look through the- you look through our past everything we fundraised for, we've come through on as well. So where'd the money go? It went towards the fucking campaigns that people, you know, you're so what else are they asking about merchandise, if you buy a t-shirt, all you're gonna get from that is your t-shirt. If you don't get it, then you're owed a refund. You know, if a shop does wild profits over the next years, Malcolm and I owe nobody a fucking apology for that, you know, and nobody's owed an apology for not getting paid to be a member? Like, ultimately, what's this come down to you join a congregation, you know, you have that opportunity to build that community. It's not a paid position. It was never, never presented as such. But you know, that said, ministers, they can, they can charge for weddings, funerals, they set their own prices, whatever, you know, that's something that you negotiate with the public. And that's why we also want to make sure we know who our ministers are, and that they really understand where we're coming from, but, you know, ministers, they they can absolutely get paid.

Stephen Bradford Long: 33:30

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, and all the money I make for being a Satanist comes from my patrons on Patreon, go to patreon.com/stevenbradfordlong. That is, that is how this Satanist makes money. So yeah, I mean, the that line that you refer to or that quote that you refer to in the article, where it's like I, this person was saying, I found the Satanism part, basically kind of stupid, I was here for the activism. I don't mean to be I don't mean to to be disparaging. But I know I have encountered a lot of people where the the say they come for the activism. And if that is why someone is here, that is a that that's just inevitably doomed for failure on their part. Because it isn't an activist group. It is a fundamental misalignment of identity, it is a fundamental misalignment of what this organization is.

Doug Misicko: 34:31

And- and why would you want to join an organization when you're already not taking what they're telling you at face value? Right? Yes. Like we've consistently said these things. And that that was what was disturbing to me about the Hail Satan? documentary, too, is how many people seem to get their completely own ideas about what the meaning of the documentary was, in the same way that people get those very disparate notions of what we are from the news articles they read and things like that, but I- the film did a good job of showing that, you know, we really have a community that takes this seriously. And then I was reading some reviews and it was like, Oh, these guys have a real clever way of dressing up progressive politics as a religion we were described as, as Mary story.

Stephen Bradford Long: 35:12

We were described as Merry Pranksters, and I'm like, sorry, I don't see myself as a prankster there. And there is nothing ironic about my Satanism there's, there's nothing satirical or ironic about my Satanism, it is deadly serious. I actually really don't like irony. Like, I kind of don't get it. And I kind of don't like it. And I'm drawn to people who are on ironically into something and who are on ironically, the thing that they are. And that's what drew me to Satanism. Right?

Doug Misicko: 35:44

Well, it's funny how many people think that because they find something funny, or because they find something offensive or shocking or whatever, that that must be the purpose of it, you know? And that's funny to me, because to me, there is nothing funny about our dispute in Arkansas, you know, to put the Baphomet monument up on the public grounds where they put up a 10 commandments monument. And it's funny to me to see people, they see the Baphomet monument they hear Satanists say, you know, we have equal access to this public forum in they say that, that's fucking hilarious. And not only is it hilarious to them, but then they they assume that hilarity was our cause. Before anything else,

Stephen Bradford Long: 36:30

Right, yeah, I mean, we could probably rail on and on about the article, but we should probably move on. But yeah, so there's, there's just so much to break down in the article. But we need to spend more time on that since we're, since we're in the weeds here. I do have some questions from my audience from both Twitter and my Discord server. This was one that that someone on Twitter just submitted. So Lucien, you can tell me if you want this cut out or not, and we can just move on,

Doug Misicko: 37:04

but it sounds like it's gonna be good.

"Is [Doug Misicko] anti-semitic?

Stephen Bradford Long: 37:06

But someone on Twitter asks, Is he anti-semitic? Like everyone says the response?

Doug Misicko: 37:15

I don't think everybody says that.

Stephen Bradford Long: 37:17

No, a very, very small handful of people say that 20 years ago,

Doug Misicko: 37:21

This podcast writes, I cracked some really distasteful-

Stephen Bradford Long: 37:26

I really don't need to cover this all over again, if you don't want to with like-

Doug Misicko: 37:32 Okay. People act like I avoid the question to okay, I don't I never

Stephen Bradford Long: 37:37

know, I just, I just think you're probably sick of talking about it. But go on. We can we can talk about it.

Doug Misicko: 37:41

Somebody wanted to know. Yeah, that's good enough. Fair. Okay. But, you know, even though I don't hold the same opinions that I held 20 years ago, I still can't let people say that my opinions were what they were not even 20 years ago. Yeah. So the comments I made were coming from a place of militant atheism. And I made these comments about how I felt it was okay, to make fun of Jews in certain circumstances. And, you know, this was a very inarticulate and idiotic way. And it's humiliating to me that people hear this now, I sound like a complete moron. And I'm saying that, you know, if, if you're talking about people dressed in traditional religious garb, and doing like, these archaic rituals, and that they actually believe that, you know, there's this one true God, and they're God's people, or whatever, that's worthy of mockery. But I said, even then, that I didn't believe that it was okay, by any means to throw people under the bus because of their ancestral lineage. I thought, and that was my way of saying, you know, ideologies are open for mockery, you know, somebody's genetic history, their ancestry, you know, things outside of ideological adherence, things like that, that's off limits. So you don't you don't hold that against somebody, but I still sounded like an idiot, it still sounded really insulting and, and I have no desire to insult religious Jews. Now, you know, I was much harsher on religion before, really, really having the religion of the Satanic Temple and realizing, you know, that I do think there's a space for people to have their beliefs as long as they don't impose them on anybody else. And that we can, you know, we can all just kind of share this space, and we don't have to, we don't have to be bothered by one another in this way. And that's what I was saying 20 years ago. And that said, you know, again, I disagree with a lot that I did believe 20 years ago, but that was what I would say I wouldn't I wouldn't talk that way now. You know, and I wouldn't want to hurt anybody's feelings over that kind of thing. And I certainly wouldn't want to insult anybody, you know, from a Jewish background and, you know, I'm gonna pull the whole Jewish friend thing. But people have no idea how many of my closest personal contacts, including the other co-founder of the Satanic Temple come from Jewish backgrounds. Yeah, Malcolm is Jewish. Yeah, yeah. And, and the fact of the matter is, is, it's not usually my Jewish friends who are taking issue with this, it's usually some white kid somewhere, you know, getting pissed off, because they want to get pissed off is what I is what I think I'm seeing here, they saw an opportunity they saw, they saw a misstep in my language at a point and they don't have much else and they never want to let it go. And, you know, what would be better that I disappear from the public eye that I not do? The things I'm doing now. I mean, I have 10 years now, where I think my writings have elaborated my viewpoints and everything else. I mean, it would be different. I think if a podcast from 20 years ago, surfaced, and there was nothing else to say, for where I had come from, or what I'm doing, or where I stand today, or whatever. But after all this time and all this material, I think you're really fucking reaching. You know,

Stephen Bradford Long: 41:18

Have you seen the movie Doubt? [Doug: I have not.] So- so, I might be making this up. And I talked about this in my interview with Katie Herzog last year, because she talks a lot about online dysfunction and being trashed online. And, you know, she was basically brutally turned on by her entire community. And in that conversation, I and I might, I was like, very high on drugs when I watched the movie. So I might entirely be making this up. And I haven't seen it since. But she, in the movie Doubt, there's this scene where a younger nun confronts the older nun played by, by the devil- Devil Wears Prada lady. And she is the older non the Mother Superior hates, this priest hates him and is trying to destroy him. And this younger nun says, you just don't like him. It hasn't this happen, it's because he's modern, it's because he uses modern pens. It's because he uses modern pencils, it's because he dresses in a modern way. Again, I might be entirely making this up. But this is what I remember. You just don't like him. And as a result you're trying to destroy him is, you know, again, this is me remembering this through the fog of you know, being on massive painkillers at the time. So take all of that with a grain of salt. But I think that there's something there in that I really think that so much of the rage that we see in online spaces, and so much of the so much of the attempts to destroy other people, it really almost very often has nothing to do with the reasons that they state, it just has to do with the fact that that person or rubs them the wrong way, the wrong way. And they don't like that person.

Doug Misicko: 43:10

And they're people I've never met in my case, you know, like-

Stephen Bradford Long: 43:14

Oh, yeah, same. People I have been ruthlessly trashed on Twitter over the years, like brutally trashed, and people you've never spoken to probably like me.

Doug obliquely references the UFC vs Johnson case and denies TST is a pyramid scheme

Doug Misicko: 43:21

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And then then I see these claims. Like, I didn't hear- I didn't know about these people in Seattle until they had stolen our Facebook page and Twitter account or whatever, and started posting harassing doxxing things about us. And then, you know, we get all these claims, like, well, TST is a pyramid scheme and everything. Like without definition. TST is a cult, and it's like, well, how did how does that work? You know, like, in what way? Is it a cult and things like that? But it's like, ultimately, it's like, my big question is so what happened to you specifically? It's really bizarre to me that we see all these claims about the nature of TST without any of these people saying what actually happened to them?

Stephen Bradford Long: 44:09

Yeah. Yeah. You know, the, the whole thing I've heard a lot of people throw around the word cult, and I'm like, I'm sorry. As someone who was raised in a pretty repressive evangelical setting. TST is like the anti-cult. I feel very free to be myself, to think my thoughts, to disagree with leadership when I need to, to air my opinions. I have never felt ever felt this an imposition on to how I think or how I live.

On shunning former members: Doug claims, "We never do that. We've never held it against somebody"

Doug Misicko: 44:47

You brought me back to it. I gotta go back to the Newsweek article. That's okay. But it was it was Salomé, who in the WHO inner quote claimed that it- And I mentioned it because this is the only time somebody tried to put a definition on what they meant by calling TST a cult. And according to Salomé, she got kicked out because of asking me about Twitter, which just isn't true, and I feel is provably untrue. Just given the fact that the, you know, you can look up other articles about the Twitter suit that will tell you it was actually about, you know, this tweet, talking about burning down our headquarters and things like that. But her claim was that then everybody was told not to associate with her not to talk with her and things like that. And that infuriates me because we never do that. We've never held it against somebody. But even in Salomé's case, her boyfriend was working with TST, nobody suggested he should resign. Yeah, nobody held it against him, she was kicked out for other reasons. And then, which had nothing to do with talking to me about Twitter, or anything like that. She was kicked out of TST he, you know, nobody, nobody said anything against him. You know, it was like, I don't know, you know, personally, I'm thinking, I don't know how you're gonna work this out at home or whatever, but but fine, you know, and he worked with us. And then he, he stopped for a while, but not because he had any animosity towards TST. They're not seeing each other anymore. And he's back with TST. But, you know, the whole, the whole thing just kind of underscores just how little, we've actually done to keep people from associating with anybody, even people who've provably been trying to do us harm.

Stephen Bradford Long: 46:37

Yep, exactly. You know, I've I have a few very close evangelical friends in the area, I call myself an ecumenical sloth. Like I hang out with all of like, every- I want more friends in life, I don't want fewer and so I- I have really close friends from a vast swath of religious backgrounds. And I really value those friendships. And so some of my very close evangelical friends I think, are- are kind of worried that I'm in a cult and one of my friends, one of my best friends actually voiced this he was like "Steven I'm, there's something cult-like, going on here." And I was like, "Okay, let's- let's talk about this some, let's- let's explore this." And he, he was like, "Well, you know, it feels kind of like a cult of personality, like, you know, with Lucien up there at the top and Malcolm" and I was just like, okay, okay, look, I don't think about Lucien Lucien. I'm basically only thinking about Lucien when he when he is in front of me talking to me on the show, what I am thinking about on a day to day basis is the community. That's what I'm thinking, because it isn't about Lucien or Malcolm, the community that they have built. isn't about either of these guys, it is about the people, and I don't suppose

Doug Misicko: 47:50

I wish I could be- I wish I could be more anonymous and less in the public. I honestly, invite by design, I feel like I'm as little as I can be. But if I honestly, if I did not need subscribers, I know. I know the theory. I know, I know, the theory is that I'm living large off of money made from TST, but that's not true.

Stephen Bradford Long: 48:16

You're living off of Patreon. Yeah, you're living off of Patreon. I get it.

Doug Misicko: 48:20

No, it's not. It's not that great. You know, it only reasonably if I didn't, if I wasn't relying on that. You know, I'd probably delete all my social media and disappear.

Stephen Bradford Long: 48:33

I get it. No, I mean, yeah, no, my Patreon is the reason why I was able to repair my car last month. Like if if it weren't for my patrons, I wouldn't have been able to do that. It's so no like. And also there's this thing with the cult. The idea of being a cult. I was thinking about this after my conversation with my evangelical friend, I think what it came down to is you seem to be doing a lot of work with TST, and it's taking up a lot of your time. And because it is a new religious movement that is filtered because it's with a spooky religion that a lot of people don't understand that somehow gets filtered through cult and I was just like, Okay, I have put in equal, if not more amounts of work for mainline accepted religious traditions. I have worked for an Episcopalian Church. I was a missionary with Youth With A Mission. I have worked with various ministries before I left Christianity and became a Satanist at no point because of that level of work. And I mean, it is grinding work. I mean, it is- it can be soul-crushing work, at times too soul-crushing, but because it was evangelical and acceptable, the response was, "Oh, look at the good work you're doing". Whereas now I put in a lot of work into something that I'm really passionate about and something that I really care about and a community that that I find very meaningful, and suddenly it's a cult. And I really think that it has a lot to do with the fact that it's a new religious movement that spooks people.

Doug Misicko, on cults

Doug Misicko: 50:10

Well, for some people, the word cult is just a synonym for new religious movement. And in for that reason, some of the academics won't even use the word cult because they feel like it's just a pejorative against new religions. I'm different. I feel like the word cult is useful. It has meaning, but there's not a clear definition as to what distinguishes, there's usually kind of checklists, you know, about what kind of things are called, tends to do what makes something a cult, but I think, you know, part of the measure of a cult is whether it's people have a cultic relationship with it in- sometimes people will have a cultic relationship with sports teams, or whatever else. And on my end, the people come to TST, and they have kind of a cult-like mentality, they make me nervous. And they're usually the people who defect, the loudest and hardest too they get pissed off. Because true, they're not being told how to live in a, they're getting mad, because I'm not dictating the minutiae of their political opinions to them and things like that. So then they get the idea that I disagree with the greater cause whatever it might be, you know, and that not that I'm just placing less limits on, you know, where my authority is on, on dictating what are, you know, what the thought processes are within the satanic community and stuff like that. And, you know, I think that in order for something to be called a cult, you do have to have something that's very hierarchical, very authoritarian, engages in an authoritarian conditioning, and does do things like excommunicate people for, for asking questions or isolating people from, from other people who might not believe the tenets of Satanism and that type of thing. Oh, very much antithetical to the social culture that we've developed within the Satanic Temple in reality. But what's funny about that is, you know, we've never done we've, from the very beginning, we've been had this anti-cult mentality. And that's also kind of by design, because I've studied cults, you know, I've studied new religious movements, and have done so since before the inception of tst. So I know these kinds of things to look out for and I know the things we don't want to become and that kind of thing. Things to warn against what's disheartening and somewhat fascinating, is to see that, despite all of that, you get the accusation anyway.

Stephen Bradford Long: 52:38

Yes, yeah. And it really does, I think, have to do in part with the fact that we are a minority religion, we're one of the spooky religions. The, the Catholic Church is almost never you know, unless you're Richard Dawkins, or Sam Harris, never accused of being a cult and yet they have some- you know, I was Catholic for a time and they have some pretty horrific policies even as they have tried to reform some the a lot of the policies and the Holy Orders, for example, my partner is a Jesuit and the the strictures that they put on you are stunning. People don't call the Jesuits a cult. People don't call holy orders a cult but- and that's because it's a mainline accepted religion.

Doug Misicko: 53:27

Right. And I think, you know, we're, we've always just been vulnerable to accusation being a new religious movement and being Satanists. And I think that, you know, just the most disappointing part is to see you know, who's exploited that the most and it's generally been I think, narcissistic people came to TST hoping to up their public profile and you know, if they couldn't do it with us, they do it against us.

Doug is asked about Augustus Sol Invictus

Stephen Bradford Long: 53:55

So since we're airing, dirty laundry and and so on, there's another accusation that comes up a lot. Do you have time by the way, what how are you on time?

Doug Misicko: 54:05

I have- I have time for accusations.

Stephen Bradford Long: 54:07

Okay. Well, okay, so just another thing that I see going around that I think would that would be helpful for some clarity on and I'm pretty sure I you know, I'm not worried about it. But I think a lot of people that I've seen and by a lot I mean, a few people on Twitter, you are you have sometimes been accused of having a relationship. People cannot see my air quotes, but they're here, your "relationship" with Augustus Sol Invictus. Do you know about that?

Doug Misicko: 54:41

And- and yeah, I know about that, but I don't know him. Yeah, exactly. You can to him. I've never read his bullshit material. Like, I don't care. Like I guess-

Stephen Bradford Long: 54:50

First let's back up. Let's back up and tell people who Augustus Sol Invictus is.

Doug Misicko: 54:54

I don't really he's some guy in Florida and he's a- he's one of those.

Stephen Bradford Long: 54:58

He's an alt-right guy, isn't he? What's that? He's an alt-right guy, isn't he?

Doug Misicko: 55:02

I guess I guess something. Yeah. Well, he's one of those who has one of those kind of old school LaVeyan perspectives on on the Left Hand Path from what I understand the authoritarian type thing or whatever. And what happened was, I was invited to speak at a Left Hand Path conference, and he was invited to and I knew he was invited in. I don't like the ideas being put forward by that camp. You know what I mean? And to be honest, I really was looking forward to the idea of being able to debate this guy, make him look like a fucking fool. And then they disinvited him because people were complaining that he was a fascist. And so I withdrew from the conference myself, because I felt that was kind of the point. You know what I mean? Like, there's, I feel like there's baggage in the self-identified Left Hand Path community, and that it doesn't go away by ignoring that it was there, you know, what I mean? It's like, I think the more people who realize what LaVeyanism was trying to tell us or which directions that went with some of these people, the better honestly, you know, like, I think they can understand better where we're coming from and contrast to that, and they'll understand better, why maybe that's not the way to go, you know, it makes me sick to see like the CoS Twitter feed, trying to essentially imitate us, you know, while saying that we're imitating them by clearly taking on like this progressive politics demeanor and their public messaging, while in the background, you can see they're, they're being run by, you know, very much alt-right characters. And so, I did not like the idea of people bitching and moaning and getting somebody thrown out of a conference that way, and I never have in- this is something that- this is what makes people call call me alt-right, you know, because they want to shut down speech preemptively. And that kind of thing, I withdrew, I wrote a thing. And I said, this is why I withdrew. And now all of a sudden, it turns into best buddies with this guy. And every so often, you know, people will demand that I denounce certain characters like Milo Yiannopoulos, or, you know, other alt-right guys, and the fact of the matter is, I have not read their material, I'm not interested in their material, I'm not interested in their thoughts. I'm not interested in these pop culture alt-right guys, and I'm not going to read their fucking material, go through their comments and statements, just to appease some assholes on Twitter, who demand that I denounce these guys whose material I don't give a shit about and who-

Stephen Bradford Long: 57:48

Are if they spent any time reading your work, it would be obvious that you are not aligned with them in any way.

Doug Misicko: 57:55

Yeah. And- and also, I'm not going to denounce people if I'm not going to read their material either. Fair, because the things I've said, I've heard- I've seen people say about what people said, as opposed to what those people actually said, sometimes is really far off the fucking mark.

Discussion of Milo Yiannopoulos

Stephen Bradford Long: 58:12

True. And you know, you mentioned Milo Yiannopoulos. There, there was this thing where, and this is another thing that held against you on Twitter, is that you spoke out against somewhere I forget where this was, maybe some article or whatever, some interview, I don't, I don't know, where you spoke out against the violent reactions against Milo at Berkeley. And this was, and you know, this is like ancient internet history now. But back when Milo Yiannopoulos was unfortunately irrelevant.

Doug Misicko: 58:49

He basically he went on this tour, if you asked me, they made him relevant. Part of my that was part of my complaint there. I honestly hadn't heard of the guy until people were burning shit down at Berkeley, because I don't fucking read Breitbart. I don't read the presumed witticisms of some, you know, confused gay

Stephen Bradford Long: 59:10

cars, etc. Oh, yeah.

Doug Misicko: 59:14

Well, I mean, confused, I think on his political orientation comes to the rest of that maybe not as sexual orientation.

Stephen Bradford Long: 59:19

However, now he's come out as ex-gay. And that's, that's the movement that I come out of. I was in the ex gay world. And so now he's like, I'm going through reparative therapy and all of this stuff. So he's also confused on his sexual orientation as well, not just his political orientation.

Doug Misicko: 59:35

Right, right. But, you know, if people had read my comments, it would have been, you know, the point's that, you know, you're making this guy, a household name. Yes. And you're really diverting attention away from what he's actually saying, by bringing attention to him speaking at this school, because now you know, you've given this guy the opportunity to just position himself as a free speech. Warrior, you know, devoid of whatever topical content he was actually going to cover whatever else. And you know, it really worked for him. You can see, you know, there was a lot of commentary even mainstream articles were talking about how he had become, you know, a household name overnight because, you know, protesters at Berkeley insisted on making it so now, you'll see them today saying C D platforming works because ironically, they're referring to Yiannopoulos his own words where he posted something talking about us since I've been canceled. I've lost so much money. I don't have speaking engagements and stuff like that bullshit. Bullshit. What really sunk him was that he opened his mouth too fucking much.

Stephen Bradford Long: 1:00:41 Yeah, it was the right that canceled him. It wasn't the Left.

Doug Misicko: 1:00:45

Right. He started talking. He started talking sympathetically about pedophilia. Karana show. Yeah. And that was when he got canceled. It was like, you know, those attempts to cancel him at Berkeley only made him big. And then he said shit that offended the Conservatives too. And everybody kind of forgot about him. And now everybody tells their own convenient narrative about how like, oh, look, you gotta burn shit down. And then you know, then you've deplatformed a guy.

Stephen Bradford Long: 1:01:12

I think that Milo Yiannopoulos is a failure of the Left. And I think that because he wasn't the the Left. And by the Left, I don't mean just, you know, like the communists and social democrats and democratic socialist and so on. I mean, you know, left of center, we the Left, it was the Right that defeated Milo. It wasn't the Left, the Left had such horribly bad tactics in their response to him, it is almost as if they had never encountered a troll before in their life. It was as if they had never learned how to deal with a shitty troll.

Doug Misicko: 1:01:50

Right? And in my mind, they elevated him, yes, on this pedestal for the conservatives. And then they got mad at people like me for saying, I don't think you should handle it this way. And I'm also a Nazi. That just kills me the most about progressive politics, when it's when it gets to that point where it's like, you can't discuss best tactics without people saying like, you know, that you- that you must be against the cause. Like there was a- there was a statistician who got fired from his job for tweeting on-

Stephen Bradford Long: 1:02:24

Shore, David Shore. Yeah, yes, I know, it was right.

Doug Misicko: 1:02:29

Protests broke out after George Floyd was murdered. And he said, you know, and sure, it might not have been the right time. But you know, he's an analytical mind. [Right.] You got to make some concessions for people's difference, differences in processing emotional material too. Yes, but he he thought it was important to point out that, you know, violence in the streets, riots, protests in an election year, traditionally favor a Republican candidate. [Correct.] And it's true. There's support that it's- there's in, you know, people were saying, now is not the time, now is not the time to talk about it? Of course it is. And he went on to fucking talk about it, when it's most relevant when it's happening when you can stop something from being a problem. When it's time to talk tactic, you know, you're you're hitting, that just kills me when people kill the messenger like that he could have even been wrong, you know, what I mean? You could you could look at the data and maybe say, like, ah, actually, it turns out, that's not true. There was a, you know, there was a, there was an error and data collection at the time, whatever, you know, what I mean? So what it doesn't mean, he said it in malice, you know, I fully believe that he believed, because I also believe that that's a true fact that the kind of violence in the streets everything traditionally favors Republicans who people wrongly, I think view is the law and order party, you know, that the consistent stable, you know, the the underlying mentality of conservatism, you know, people will start leaning towards that, and there was certainly nothing wrong with him pointing that out. And there's no reason to believe that he had right wing sympathies because of it. But anyways, that was my long belabored way of saying that that's what I really, just really what I find most disheartening about progressive activism right now is that insistence that of latching on to one tactic, and then deciding that anything that that might question that tactic is heresy.

SBL: "many parts of the Left are shutting down avenues for self-criticism and self-correction"

Stephen Bradford Long: 1:04:27

You're hitting on something that I've been thinking a lot about lately, and I've been trying to find a way to write about this on my blog. And so I'm just going to say it and maybe this will turn into a blog post but something that's really worrying me about our current progressive place is I- I feel like, and this might not be accurate, but I feel like a lot of- part of- many parts of the Left are shutting down avenues for self-criticism and self-correction and when, because of how those criticisms might rhyme with something that the Right says, Right. And the reason this really worries me is that a movement that cannot self-correct, that cannot introspect that cannot correct course, from within is just doomed to failure. And the Left already has too long of a history of infighting. And I mean, all the way, you know, going back decades, I mean, this isn't like the modern meme of the Left eats its own on Twitter, it's this, this, it's a trend that goes back a long ways of, of just not being able to find unity, not being able to find, you know, a common cause, a common ground within leftist movements. And, of course, there are some important exceptions, like the civil rights movement, and so on, gay rights, etc. But I'm really worried that we are- that we progressives are shutting down avenues for self criticism, because of how it rhymes with something that the right says. And so often, I will be in conversation with someone and I say something, and suddenly, it's as if there is the ghost of Milo Yiannopoulos standing right behind me. And they're no longer talking to me, they're talking to that apparition over my shoulder, they're talking about they're taught, suddenly talking to that troll, who's, and I'm like, "No, no, no, no, listen to what I'm saying about free speech. You're not talking to a right-wing troll on Twitter, you're talking to me, and I'm not on the Left, or I'm not on the Right, you know who I am?" You know, I'm not on the Right. Why are you interacting with me as if I am suddenly this troll for bringing up concerns about free speech bringing up concerns about that, that might derail the goals of the left?

Doug Misicko on free speech

Doug Misicko: 1:06:56

And it is true that you see the right-wing camp always bring up the concept of free speech now as though they've always been the champions of free speech. It's not true. You know, exactly. Ronald Reagan was very much against the free speech movement at Berkeley in his time, and Governor there, he did much to try to shut it down. While Martin Luther King was the champion of free speech at the time, and the hippies and the hippies, were all championing their causes under the banner of free speech and things like that, you know, and it goes back and forth. And you have to, you have to, you have to set principles that can work regardless of the times, right. And if you look at the Satanism of the Satanic Temple, entrenched in our very tenants[sic] is this notion of a self-correcting system, yes, reliant upon debate, free speech, and free inquiry, and you must have all of those things together, you can't take one of them apart, and then have the rest of them, they all- they're all dependent on one another. So if you're still grappling with the idea, that free speech sometimes defends speech that you find offensive, or callous, or whatever else in- you're not able to reconcile that with a principal position that would still allow the Satanic Temple to speak. You know, when Catholics complain, or whatever else, all these questions I bring up in the free speech articles that nobody meant- nobody bothers to address before they start criticizing my position and in pretending that it's merely an avenue by which I'm defending the most odious speech possible. You know, it's just intellectual dishonesty. But to me, that's the essence of who we are. And that really separates us, I think, from the pop culture, politics, this social media activism that we see now, that's going to be a very short-term thing. And I think, you know, our integrity depends on having real principled positions that we will be able to apply consistently, regardless of whichever way the pendulum swings.

Stephen Bradford Long: 1:09:11

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think one of the reasons why the the rights of minorities have been so successful in this country. And of course, that is not saying that there aren't still problems, there are absolutely still problems, the rights for- but the rights for gay people, trans people, etc, have been an absolute triumph in America. And there's still more work to be done. But I think one of the reasons why it was a triumph as well as the Civil Rights Movement is because of the Free Speech protections and without those free speech protections, minorities, who people do want to shut up, who people would rather, you know, say "No, they're disgusting. Don't ever listen to them" because of free speech protections that are universal. Right, those rights were able to advance and that isn't the only component. But I feel like it's a very important component.

Doug Misicko: 1:10:06

It is a very important component. And, you know, I, you know, I think this is part of the problem where goes back to the problem of people viewing us as merely political and not really religious. So I feel like they take our claims for equal access to be more of an act of trolling or pranksterism than something that comes from a genuine place. And I don't think they understand that there are some of us who genuinely feel it when some city council says we can't deliver an invocation when they're allowing prayers from other religious groups to stand up there. I don't think they they understand it, when we're treated differently in the courts, that we're not laughing on the way home, we're horrified. We're horrified feeling that, you know, it's been codified that it's allowed to marginalize us in that way. I think there are a lot of people who feel like we've taken on a superfluous identity that we could walk away from, and they're not considering the fact that no, we really feel this is an essential part of our identity, and we're being shit upon. And so they hear our arguments for free speech, and their first thoughts aren't thinking, oh, yeah, that makes sense. They're Satanists. Everybody's always trying to shut them up. Every time they do anything. There's other religious groups claiming that all they're doing is trying to offend them. They don't really know the reality of it. And I think part of their part of their proclivity to see our arguments, in the least charitable light also come from that failure to understand who we are.

Stephen Bradford Long: 1:11:44

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we should probably wrap this up. But do you have any final thoughts before we we wrap this up?

Doug Misicko: 1:11:52

I wasn't thinking anything the whole time.

Stephen Bradford Long: 1:11:57 I don't think you were just in a void. I understand. Cool. Well, well, one last question. Do you have another? I think we might have talked about this last time. But just real quick, do you have? Is there another Satanic Planet album looming on the horizon? And if so, do you know when it's coming?

Doug Misicko: 1:12:16

I don't know when it's coming. But we're working on it now. And we've got a couple tracks that I really like. And now we're working with Dave Lombardo through the creative process, which is a whole new thing too. So it's kind of like a new, there's a new element to the band. Previously, we had recorded everything in the studio. And then we gave it all to Lombardo and he added stuff to it. This time, he's more part of the creative process with writing the music and everything. And I'm being less cautious with my vocals, this time around, trying to expand on that and try out different things. And so far, everything's working out really well. And I'm really excited about the next Satanic Planet album. And as it appears, it seems like Satanic Planet will play its first show in February as part of SatanCon. And we'll play some of our new material then and hopefully, we'll also stream the show on TST TV or something like that. But really looking forward to that. And you know, when I have a lot of tedious shitty work and a lot of administrative stuff, and a lot of trying to mediate disputes and things like that, I'm just so grateful that I also have a creative project to work with. That comes together as well as Satanic Planet.

Stephen Bradford Long: 1:13:36

Awesome. All right. Well, I think that's it for this show. The music is by Eleventy Seven, the theme song is Wild by Eleventy Seven. You can find it on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to music. This show is written, produced and edited by me Steven Bradford Long and as a production of Rock Candy Recordings. As always, Hail Satan, and thanks for listening.