Podcasts/TTA-Ep437

The Thinking Atheist Ep. 437 - Hail Satan (the documentary): with Lucien Greaves
2019
"Hail Satan?" is a new documentary by director Penny Lane that's getting glowing reviews across the country. Lucien Greaves, co-founder of The Satanic Temple, is featured in the film, and he joins me for a candid discussion about the film, TST, and his fight both for religious liberty and against religious privilege in the United States.
https://www.spreaker.com/user/thethinkingatheist/podcast437-hailsatan

Transcript

[WIP]

Unknown Speaker 0:04 The Thinking Atheist, it's not a person, symbol, an idea,

Unknown Speaker 0:10 the population of atheists this country is going through the room

Unknown Speaker 0:13 rejecting faith, or silly knowledge, challenging the sacred.

Unknown Speaker 0:18 If I told the truth, it's because I tell the truth. Now because I put my hand on

Unknown Speaker 0:23 a book and made a wish and working together. For a more rational world.

Unknown Speaker 0:28 Take the risk of thinking for yourself much more happiness truth fusion wisdom will come to you that way.

Unknown Speaker 0:35 Assume nothing, question everything and start thinking. This is the Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.

Unknown Speaker 0:51 Great database satanist great database human being. We honor our Governor Rick Scott's Hail Satan Rick, for providing us this opportunity to make the satanic clause clear and make our presence known. And

Unknown Speaker 1:12 I believe it and I'm very excited about it. I think that if we're being sued by the Satanic Temple, we got to be doing something right. We're doing something right here in the state of Missouri. This lawsuit by the Satanic Temple on behalf of one of its members is like the Hobby Lobby case. The Evangelical

Unknown Speaker 1:31 Christian owners of Hobby Lobby craft stores challenge Obamacare that requires for profit companies to provide comprehensive birth control coverage, saying it violated their religious beliefs.

Unknown Speaker 1:44 Given the court's ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby Satanic Temple has some sincerely held religious beliefs of its own. A satanist believes that quote, the body is inviolable subject to one's own will alone. And they say they strive to make all decisions regarding personal health based on the best scientific understanding of the world.

Unknown Speaker 1:59 It's brilliant, right? Because one of the things the Supreme Court said in its Hobby Lobby decision is we can't question people's religious beliefs.

Unknown Speaker 2:07 It will be a very cold cold day in the pits of hell. Before you'll ever see a statue from the Satanic Temple or some other group like that.

Unknown Speaker 2:17 At the Arkansas capitol.

Unknown Speaker 2:22 Oh yeah, this new film about the devil, while actually about the Satanic Temple called Hail Satan is already getting glowing reviews just a few. The Hollywood Reporter says Hail Satan is wickedly funny, fascinating, and niftily made. This crowd pleaser will rain at festivals and prove yet again that the devil always has the best tunes. That review from Variety said that Penny Lane the director sets out to subvert American history with intelligence and whipped he or she asks us to question why certain religions are deemed normal. Even though notes one temple member Catholic mass is all about the symbolic drinking of blood. Fred Topel at we live entertainment said they are admitted trolling of evangelical Christians became an important protest to protect freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Now they're doing the Lord's work as it were still with the showmanship of brilliant satirists and Indiewire has this blurb from David Ehrlich it says provocative hilarious and latently and raging documentary about the Satanic Temple. Of course, we talked about the Satanic Temple before and I have profiled Lucian grieves before they are a non theistic religion. They don't believe in a literal heaven or hell or God or Satan. Satan is an icon which represents rebellion against tyranny. And they use religious symbolism without believing in the supernatural. Lucian grieves is a co founder of the Satanic Temple. He is featured heavily in the documentary film, and he joins me for today's show. Lucian, good to have you back, man.

Unknown Speaker 4:10 It's great to be back.

Unknown Speaker 4:12 Before we talk about the movie. Can we talk about the Satanic Temple? mean? Do you guys attract a certain personality type or kind of a common background? I mean, do you see commonalities in people who are attracted to the Satanic Temple?

Unknown Speaker 4:26 There's commonalities and people who are attracted to Satanism in general, even different brands of Satanism people are attracted to the theistic sects, which are much smaller, much less prevalent than non theistic satanic practice. But just the kind of rejection of arbitrary authority is the kind of main underlying common denominator for people who identify with Satanism. Isn't that that does lead to different certain character type since kind of psychological comorbidities that you might not anticipate and some of some of those I'm not even sure where they come from. But I think from my experience being where I am here, I see there's a, there's there's a lot of animal lovers amongst us. And that really seems to be a common common thread.

Unknown Speaker 5:18 Oh, we heard you know, we heard you guys are cutting off their heads and drinking in the blood.

Unknown Speaker 5:24 Right, exactly. But But I think I think one common thing you'll see in a lot of a lot of Satanists is that they're not. They're not necessarily used to organizing into groups can be very impassioned about social issues, but not necessarily the most amenable to team playing. You know, so it can be it can be difficult trying to get everybody together,

Unknown Speaker 5:47 we see that in many atheist circles, you know, they're like, Oh, you're not gonna hurt this cat. I left one flock, I'm not gonna join another, you know, I'm an independent spirit.

Unknown Speaker 5:57 Right, right. And there's a lot to be said for that, too. But there's also a lot to be said, for the idea that if we don't hang together, we'll hang separately, especially now.

Unknown Speaker 6:07 We're talking about this documentary that was produced by Magnolia Pictures. That's a big fish. And it's called hail satan. It just released is it sort of playing in theaters around the country? Or is it available now on like iTunes, and Amazon,

Unknown Speaker 6:23 they're announcing more theaters all the time, if you go to hail satan film.com and go to its little get tickets spot on the menu, you know, tell you where a theater near you is that we'll be showing it or the closest one near you. But it's, as I said, it's been updated all the time. And it's doing really, really well at the premieres that it's doing now for in film festivals. And it originally premiered at Sundance and Utah. I was there. And it was it was very popular there too. It's been very well received.

Unknown Speaker 6:57 I remember when, when any what the Evangelicals will call sack religious film comes out. There's the predictable protests. Does your radar start to go off? Do you think they're gonna come out and and start pounding the pulpits right there in front of the theaters, or what

Unknown Speaker 7:14 I imagined that's coming at some point, but it hasn't. I haven't heard anything of that type yet. And in fact, this has been the least controversial thing we've done, I went to Sundance and I was talking to people who were in the film industry or worked with celebrities and high profile films and events and that type of thing. And they were asking if I was ready for this kind of exposure, if I was ready for this kind of controversy and that type of thing. And I thought it displayed a little bit of a lack of knowledge on their part of what I've been doing for the past six years as it is, there hasn't been a thing we've done where there hasn't been a lot of protests and a lot of backlash. And we've gotten none of that for this so far. But I imagine once it is more mainstream released because now it is going around at the film festivals. And there has been a little bit of stirrings of his stuff, evangelical camps, commenting on the number of good reviews we've gotten. But once it's widely available in it ends up on one of the streaming sites, I'm sure our critics will, will watch it with an eye towards decrying every element of it.

Unknown Speaker 8:26 I was struck by the documentary, I just felt like the No, I was given a preview copy of it expecting a hit job. Instead, they really were fair. I mean, you tell me, you know, you're over there at the point position, when you saw the finished product. What was your reaction?

Unknown Speaker 8:44 Yeah, I was, I was happy. I mean, it shows us some unpleasant things that happened, but they were showed accurately in a way that I can't complain that if people see that and they think, well, that's me or the organization want nothing to do with it. I can't complain, then maybe we're not free. You know, all I can ask is that this stuff is presented fairly inaccurately. And I felt that it was, but it was really, really stressful to work with a documentary crew for some three years and have no idea what narrative they really intended to put together. Because I have no say, in how that material is all edited together. I couldn't stop them from going and doing certain interviews or anything like that. I had no say in it. But I did work with them and keep them informed of things that were going on kept them up to date on things that might be interesting to them, had them following around quite often. But to the very end, like I said, I didn't know what they were putting together. So when I finally watched a screen or coffee with the producer and the director in New York, even after the last credits had rolled, I asked so Was this the final cut? It Yeah. And it was but I had a similar sense of panic when CNN did a 45 minute piece about us on Lisa Lang's show. And just about an hour before it aired, I was panic stricken thinking, What have I done? Why did I agree to this? There's no way, CNN is going to agree to give us a fair shake. And they did. I mean, to their credit, they accurately represented us as well.

Unknown Speaker 10:31 Did the filmmakers contact you, I mean, how this whole ball get rolling in the first place?

Unknown Speaker 10:36 Well, Penny Lane has done documentaries already. And I saw her documentaries after she reached out to me. And she reached out to me because I was in another documentary called Sympathy for the Devil, which was about a cult from the 60s and 70s, I did a lot of research into, and I was introducing this film one time at a showing and I just talked about some of the philosophical bases for the satanic temples, beliefs, that was kind of a springboard for me to talk a little bit about the Satanic Temple and how some of the things we were doing, were kind of informed by previous religious movements, either informed in a positive or negative way, you know, as an example, to emulate or an example to stay away from. And this gave her the understanding that she hadn't had before that there was something more to the Satanic Temple than what she was seeing in the press, she was already aware of us, because she was seeing what she thought was as prankster ism in the press, but then got this idea that there was something much deeper going on. And that we were going to have a longer lasting presence if there was really this kind of earnest identification with it. So she started reading more about it, and became interested in the idea of putting together a film. But she definitely caught me at a point where I felt somewhat certain that we would never agree to have a documentary done about us. And I think that's something a lot of people don't realize about the Satanic Temple, there's this kind of notion that we are, we're media orbs, you know, that we seek out attention, and that the name of the game is having all these articles written about us and having as much exposure to the media as we can. The fact of the matter is, is when new chapters are on boarded, and in the, you know, in our long standing kind of tradition in handling media, we are very careful to make sure that the media serves some kind of purpose other than just kind of aggrandizement or, or raising consciousness or just kind of building a sense of celebrity or anything like that. We really try to make it focus on the issues and make sure that people understand where we're coming from, not just that we're here and have an image and a website, and that kind of thing. So we actively seek out media, when we're promoting campaigns, which we need kind of support on public support, generate interest and let people know that these things are happening. So we've been invited on a lot of talk shows that we've turned down, we've been approached by networks even to put together either series, or mini documentary compositions, or whatever you call those kinds of projects. And we've turned those down. In documentary requests came in all the time, people always wanted to do documentaries about us.

Unknown Speaker 13:25 There's a guy in the documentary, and I can't remember his name, he's shown in silhouette. And he talks about how once you know how the media is set up, it becomes incredibly easy to manipulate. And this may not be your take on it as well. But when you do things like the satanic sock drive and men straight with Satan, you've got the adopt the highway in Arizona, you guys are using pitchforks to pick up litter on the road. I mean, that stuff just made for media attention, right? It means that the design or is it something else?

Unknown Speaker 13:56 Oh, no, that that is definitely something that gets media attention, and we want to bring media attention to, but I don't know, I don't see that as manipulating media. I mean, there's nothing, there's nothing dishonest, or there's not a real story that's being covered up by those kinds of stories going on there. We're really kind of strict on how we vet our media, which may or may not be apparent, but if people knew how much we've turned down, I think they would be amazed. Ultimately, I'm vindicated on that because we could have done a million documentaries before this one. And I really think we went with the best documentarian today with with Penny Lane. I really love her work.

Unknown Speaker 14:42 It's a great shot of you guys painting, the Satanic Temple headquarters in Salem. And it's just this matte black. This just black house. What are the neighbors saying about you when you guys were sort of decorating your own pad?

Unknown Speaker 14:59 Oh, it's fun. I was just did a premiere for hail satan in Salem or at the Salem Film Fest just last night. And there were a lot of locals there. And we never, we've never had problems with the locals in Salem. And I was telling them about how when we first got the property here, I was really anxious about publicly announcing we were there because we were doing a lot of renovations getting our zoning in place before we let people even know that we were the Satanic Temple. And this took a long time, there was a lot of kind of contract work that needed to be done. And I had taken to preemptively hating Salem because I was sure that given some of the other events we had done in the way I hadn't expected a backlash against us. And instead, we got protest, death threats and everything else. I just felt certain that as soon as we announced our presence in Salem, and had a physical property, we would get nothing but vandalism, assaults, you know that the neighbors would come out with pitchforks and torches. In Nothing like that happened. When we announced that we were there. Some of the Boston media was looking for scandal. They were walking around the neighborhood asking people their opinions, and obviously hoping somebody was going to be really pissed off. Everybody just kind of shrugged their shoulders and said, Well, this is Salem, they went to the local coffee shop just down the street from us. And they said, Well, you know, they're opening a gallery in their headquarters. What do you think of that? And the owner said, Well, I guess it depends what art they have, you know, and that was, that was pretty much the response. The majority religious identification, though, I'm told in the Salem area is Unitarian, whereas in Boston, it's Catholic. You know, Boston, we did an event there are people taking to the streets. And you know, Salem, it's just it's just part of the local ambience was that

Unknown Speaker 16:49 the protest featured in the film, The Satanic mass that you guys were going to attempt and then the Boston Catholics came out in mass just absolutely losing their shit. Was that the footage I was seeing?

Unknown Speaker 16:59 Yeah, yeah, that that was it. And that was that was one of those occasions where I hadn't anticipated that amount of backlash in nor was I at all happy about it. That was another thing where afterwards, we had all this kind of criticism like that we would that we had done this just for that attention just for that backlash. And the fact of the matter was, is we were really intensely fighting the Oklahoma campaign than, you know, we were trying to get back from that put up next to 10 commandments monument in Oklahoma. And I was really trying to get people to understand why that issue was important. And we were at the time, I think still trying to crowdfund money money to make our Baphomet monument. So I really wanted people's attention there. So I was actually irritated that this, this little event we were going to do at Harvard had gotten so much attention was overshadowing the other things we were doing.

Unknown Speaker 18:00 The film, Hail Satan actually shows the construction of the bathmat statue. And it's awesome. I mean, it was really something amazing to see the pieces come together to see the decisions made in the design. And then you guys wanted to bring it to Arkansas. There's a sort of I don't know if it's the centerpiece of the film, but it's you and state senator Jason raper over in Arkansas who's just talking out of both sides of his mouth, right? One side, he's talking about how it's about this historical moral thing for the United States, the 10 commandments, and then he steps into a church behind the pulpit and he starts talking about how that the United States belongs to his particular pet religion. It's pathetic.

Unknown Speaker 18:43 Oh, yeah. And if you go to my Facebook page, now, one of my recent posts is raper standing in front of a 10 commandments monument, exact same type his his, you know, the same kind of slab grant same design, in any case, somewhere else in Arkansas. And he's talking about this as being evidence of efforts to bring the gospel into the public square. And he's proud of all the Christian individuals or whatever. And he's very clear, oh, he calls it a tangible evidence of God's work or something that the 10 commandments monument. And yet at the same time, he's trying to make the legal argument in court against us now, that it's an homage to heritage in history, the 10 commandments monument, it's entirely secular and has to do with American history. You know, apparently, according to him, the Constitution was based off of the 10 commandments, and we all know that that's not at all accurate in any any way whatsoever. And I, as I said in the film, you can hear me talking to our attorney in that case is Stu over the phone. I said to him, then I said, I'm hard pressed to think of a way we can lose this case. And I still feel That way, I still feel you know, even if the judge were to be sympathetic to the evangelical theocrats, which she's not in a judge would still have a difficult time justifying a decision in favor of this standalone 10 commandments monument and upholding the discrimination against ours. There's just no, no solid legal precedent for

Unknown Speaker 20:22 it. There is a real short segment from the documentary, I'm just gonna play the audio of it here. It is one of the best, if not the best encapsulation of how the whole and God We Trust and under God on the pledge and all that stuff is totally bogus when it comes to the intent of the founders, the United States.

Unknown Speaker 20:41 If you look at the 1950s, you can see a lot of the trappings that Americans point to today as proof that their nation is a Christian nation were invented.

Unknown Speaker 20:50 Many people say, Well, what is

Unknown Speaker 20:52 it? We see in the 1950s the origins of what we might term an evangelical lobby, Jesus demanded repentance, delirium tells Americans that communism is directed by Satan.

Unknown Speaker 21:03 We thought we could get along without the pot, we thought we could get along without a moral standard, we thought we could get along without the 10 commandments in the Sermon on the Mount. And we're beginning to wake up to the fact that became, Jesus said, accept the repent, you shall likewise repent.

Unknown Speaker 21:28 Countries just learned the Soviet Union as the atomic bomb. And he warns them that Armageddon is coming. Unless the nation rediscovers his religious roots, it'll be destroyed. As America went to war with a godless communist of the Soviet Union, Americans discovered God themselves. And so this is a remarkable moment, when the nation really does start to think of itself as Christian. And just the span of a few years under God is added to the Pledge of Allegiance. And God We Trust is placed on paper currency and becomes the nation's motto. For most Americans. These ceremonies and slogans mattered more than anything that was literally written in the Constitution, because they were the things they said day in and day out. Their kids said the pledge, they saw it on their money. It was all over the world. It really becomes an integral part of who Americans think they are.

Unknown Speaker 22:20 Yeah, I was talking to Andrew Seidel, but the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and he was talking about how we're watching the theocrats attempt to remove all religious implications from all of the religious symbols right In God We Trust on the money is actually not a religious thing. Under God in the Pledge is not a religious thing and the 10 commandments on the Capitol grounds. It's not a religious thing. I mean, they're obviously maneuvering. So now, there's a scene in the documentary where you're petitioning a guest or submitting, proposing the bathroom at statue. And there's a there's a woman in the shot. She's wearing a zebra patterned blouse, and she looks like she just wants to kill you with fire. I don't know how else to put it. She just looks like she's terrified.

Unknown Speaker 23:09 Yeah, that was a subcommittee hearing at the Capitol arts and grounds commission. Yeah, and I'm proposing bathmat in the thing was, is that commission was there only to judge whether or not our architectural designs fit within the parameters that, that they had set for putting a monument on the grounds. And he did, of course, and they therefore they couldn't reject it, they there, they aren't allowed to engage in viewpoint discrimination. And they knew that so that probably horrified them more than anything. But when I was there, I just had my piece to speak. And I did. And it didn't strike me as as hilarious until I see it in the context of this documentary, because then I'm starting to get some sense of what this must have looked like to the people there in Arkansas on the subcommittee to have me standing there with that. I must say, I came off with a real air of confidence.

Unknown Speaker 24:09 Well, I'm deliberately fair and you were upfront, right? You said, Look, if you'll pull the 10 commandments, then we withdraw the bafflement. That was the deal, right? Like, it's all or nothing. But if you'll pull the 10 commandments, then we have no reason to insist the bathroom at statue be erected. Is that a fair way to say it?

Unknown Speaker 24:28 Yeah, that's absolutely fair. And it's also consistent with the symbolism and cause of Baffa met, you know, you see, bathmat, it's part human part go has the, you know, points out points down all these kinds of binary elements to symbolize the reconciliation of opposites in that idea, of course of pluralism and diversity. And part of that whole display in our minds and on a public grounds insists upon there being a nother reason really viewpoint represented. To us it would be kind of a kind of blasphemy against our own imagery. If we had had that as a standalone monument on the public grounds, we were saying it really kind of symbolizes First Amendment values, religious liberty, freedom of speech and expression. And that was a real hard one for them to argue, as you can see, you know, you see me kind of put out these concepts in it. It just causes a moment of silence because they're used to using that terminology on their own, you know that they're used to claiming to be the upholders of religious liberty. When they're trying to get religious expression on the public grounds. They always put forward the notion that religious freedom is for everybody, but they're never expecting us to be there. They're never expecting another religious voice to say that they want their peace to the ground to

Unknown Speaker 25:54 Oh, God in the film, many of them just look clueless, like they had never considered they were in a position of Christian privilege that another god, or religious exercise might show up to the party and expect fair treatment. They're just look stunned. Many of them do.

Unknown Speaker 26:10 Oh, and they're appalled by the concept that the government can't engage in viewpoint neutrality. Half the time, I feel like we're presenting a new idea to even public officials in these should be the most basic things they're aware of when they're in a public office at all. And that's what got me to an extreme state of disgust. But speaking of hysteria in Arkansas, there's just so much the cameras didn't get and I hope they got some of it for added features back, you know, bonus features on a DVD release or something. But when I was there, crashing rapers press conference for the second erection of the 10 commandments monument after the first one had gotten hit by a car by a crazed Christian who was trying to support the separation of church and state oddly enough, he was really throwing a fit in trying to get police from Mississippi to come over the border and arrest me in Arkansas while I was there for the pink mass, which we had done in counter protest in Mississippi against the Westboro Baptist Church, which I you know, presumably had some warrant out for my arrest for Mississippi. But raybert was was melting down and throwing all kinds of temper tantrums that day. I feel like he was more than fairly represented even though even

Unknown Speaker 27:32 I think hysterical is a good word. Really do. I think I got to come back to Mississippi. Is there really a warrant out for you?

Unknown Speaker 27:40 I don't think so. Any more. I think they were pursuing it at the time. But I think raper found out that they didn't have anything active for me,

Unknown Speaker 27:48 okay. They talked about it in the film, and it was a provocative act. You're like, the guy said, how do you fuck with Fred Phelps? They found her Westboro and you go well, you fuck with his mom.

Unknown Speaker 28:01 I grew up from New York Satanic Temple made the trip to Meridian to protest the Westboro Baptist Church. They performed a ritual they call pink mass on the braces. Catherine Johnston, the mother of Westboro founder, Fred Phelps, Jr. The ceremony involved to same sex couples kissing over her grave. They then declared Katherine Johnson a lesbian in the afterlife.

Unknown Speaker 28:22 Though it was just a homoerotic ceremony over his mother's grave. And then I topped it off by respectfully resting my testicles on the stone. And then we called it it, then we called it a day and and so when the film laid out

Unknown Speaker 28:42 that the law enforcement and the court system, they're trying to figure out exactly what would you be charged with? Exactly what nature

Unknown Speaker 28:51 my favorite? My favorite part of that whole thing was the news clip of the sheriff saying, It's a strange crime, one we haven't come across in a long time.

Unknown Speaker 29:06 Oh, that's, that's classic. Let's talk a little bit about the culture talking here with Lucian, grieves of the Satanic Temple. There is a little bit of a rift you addressed it in a general way near the beginning of our conversation, as you see, Jack's who was sort of running the Detroit chapter. And she held and I think she continues to hold the idea that you can't work within a broken system to initiate positive change or to further positive change. And I think she just kind of has a hope I'm not unfairly representing but I just caught up burn it all down kind of a vibe, whereas the Satanic Temple as a whole is really more about working within the letter of the law within the system. To try to establish and reinforce Church State separation or or least remind people of Church State separation, and enjoy individual private religious expression.

Unknown Speaker 30:00 Yeah, and you're not radically paraphrasing anything, she uses that terminology. And on our side, you know, our attorney uses the terminology you use to represent our position as well. Okay, and I'm sympathetic to the notion that if laws are completely unfair and unjust, maybe then you work outside of the law to rectify that. But the fact of the matter is, with a lot of what we're doing right now, the law ostensibly is on our side, even if courts aren't recognizing that properly, or or politicians are trying to rewrite these laws or ignore the foundational bases of our constitutional republic, ostensibly, the laws are on our side. And we will force them to confront that before we take on any other kind of tactical maneuvers. So working within the system isn't this kind of spineless, centrist idea that is just trying to maintain the status quo. I mean, we really do have good laws, we really did have a constitution that accounted for blocking theocracies from happening and respecting the equality of all people since the adoption of the 14th. Amendment in so there's, there's no reason for us right now to go off and take on radically new extra legal tactics. And that's never been what we've been about. And that's not what we're doing. And she, you know, had this kind of public facing event, where she said, We and who knows, which we she's talking about, in this case, are going to work, kidnapped politicians, poison people, or, you know, ultimately, she said, execute the president. And that's just not something that's not something we're comfortable being associated with. And

Unknown Speaker 31:53 well, to the tenants of the Satanic Temple, you know, your core values right

Unknown Speaker 31:58 now. Yeah. And I mean, to give some background that you don't really see in the film on that, she had kind of fallen out of contact with us for some time. And she had nothing to do with the creation of the National Council and the kind of structures we had to put in place when we started growing exponentially. And at the point where you have people identifying with you and your organization at all, you do have to be clear about what you stand for, and what you don't stand for. And you have to be clear about that with your chapters and other people representing you, because it has ramifications upon all of them. If you go off in some new direction, or if you do something illegal, it's not fair to the people who identify with us. So people who work with us to allow somebody to unilaterally have us tagged as a terrorist organization, or something of that type. So I don't think it's overly autocratic of us or against our values to have some kind of set of standards that prevent that kind of thing from happening to all our membership in the name of somebody else's. Whatever drives them to make those kinds of public statements, you know, whatever they want to do whatever kind of attention they want to get. That's just not something for them to do at the expense of the entire organization. So she said she was doing that event independently. But the problem was, you know, a public facing event like that, when you're doing something that's going to be attached to the Satanic Temple one way or the other. We need to know about that, you know, that's, that's the function our National Council has, our chapters just reach out, and they say, we're going to do this, this is our public facing message, this is the event we're doing. And we just make sure that all the legal liabilities have been covered, you know, people understand what the issues are, what I mean, we do those kinds of logistical works, where we figure out what kind of permits they might need, you know, if there's legal issues, they hadn't thought of safety issues, whatever. But also, just that the message is in line with what the Satanic Temple is about. And we tried to give our chapters to the maximum autonomy, right? We just don't want it harming the rest of the organization. So kind of the burden is on National Council to establish why not, and then for the chapters to establish why. But if you're going to publicly announce we're going to execute the president, it's going to be an absolutely no way, you know, you just don't do that kind of thing. Yeah. And so, she didn't tell any of us that she was doing this event, however, she called the documentary crew and told them to come cover it. So there was no way to separate that from us. And we had to, we had to part ways with her and, I mean, there's some people who see the film and they're still on her side about this and they think it was, you know, the wrong call for us to say that that's that's the wrong thing to do. And I think that's fine too. Like, if people want to go that route, go ahead, you know, like, go with her. And you know, find her she's she's still she's still around, I'm sure She's still doing things. But that's not who we are. We're not going to be doing those kinds of things. So we don't, we don't need you.

Unknown Speaker 35:07 And the film Hail Satan actually takes cameras in and shows this, this a good portion of this particular ceremony in question. And some of the things said from the stage, I just found it an interesting sort of a case study and tactics because we see it now as an atheist activist, I will see it some people say you go out civilly, and you work within the system, abiding by the letter of the law to instigate positive change. And then there's another group over here that says, Why would you try to work within a broken system, burn it all down. And it's a lot more extreme. And you're seeing this sort of divergence of attitudes and tactics when it comes to trying to get results out there. So I just found it an interesting to see sort of a shade of that, even in the Satanic Temple.

Unknown Speaker 35:49 Yeah, the Satanic Temple is a microcosm for a lot of the broader movements, we see minutes even kind of microcosm of the American experiment, when I talk about, you know, trying to give chapters their maximum autonomy versus trying to have some kind of hold over what our overall messages and how it's impacted by any of the activities of an individual chapter. That's very similar to the debates we always have about federal jurisdiction versus state rights. And the fact that there's debate about that isn't necessarily a sign that the system's broken and not working it, we're always going to be debating those things. And I think that's a sign of a functioning an open system, I, you know, we should always kind of be questioning what the limits are and what the rights are. And it's a constant dialogue, it will keep evolving as well.

Unknown Speaker 36:38 So as you grow, are you seeing I mean, I hate to use the word, the corporatization of the Satanic Temple. I mean, you went from sort of this, this Genesis, but now you become so big, so many chapters, so many branches on the tree? Are you seeing people wonder if you're becoming sort of a commercialized sellout of what you want stood for? I mean, this is quite often what happens when something becomes mainstream, even an indie rock band that's known by a few 1000 has a hit record. And the core fans feel betrayed in some way. So I'm speaking, I guess, to the culture, you have any thoughts on all that?

Unknown Speaker 37:13 Yeah, I mean, that's something I've been aware of, from the very beginning, you know, trying to balance these things. But it's also interesting to see, you know, from the inside, and being in the center of the storm, seeing something grow like this, and kind of learning where the limits are on autonomy of little chapters, sub chapters, and things like that, and where you really need to kind of keep a hold, and what kind of behavior you can expect from people. And some of that has been really disappointing for me. And some of that has been really heartening. And I think it kind of shows what is necessary when it comes to the kind of homogenization or making your your organization rule bound. And what's arbitrary. You know, I mean, that idea of arbitrary authority, we have to remember, arbitrary is a real key word there, you know, some forms of authority are justified and necessary. Others are just the exercise of power for its own sake. And we never want to cross that line. But it's all about protecting the organization as a whole, in making sure that nobody else's rights are violated by anybody else in our organization, due to them unilaterally doing anything in our name. And I think that that's what the core of the jack's problem was, she was acting, unilaterally making those kinds of statements. And that had, as I said, ramifications for the rest of the membership. And that's not just paranoia on my part, our attorney in Arizona, Stu, Stu de Haan, who's also in the film, he went to a seminar by the Alliance Defending Freedom one time, because I guess they're based in Scottsdale. And the Alliance Defending Freedom, for those who don't know, is one of those kinds of well financed theocratic litigation groups who, you know, probably does anti abortion stuff, but they do a lot of litigation to try to bring religion into the public square. You know, they're the kinds of people who will write briefs in favor of having a 10 commandments monument on the public grounds Institute went to one of their seminars just to see what they were talking about. And he was amazed, shocked and excited, I guess, to see that they that the one he went to, they were talking all about us. They were talking about the Satanic Temple. And they were really lamenting that the Satanic Temple had taken such advantage as they saw it, of their work. You know, they have worked hard to get religion into the public square, building these arguments about how you know the public square is open to private A donation so any Christian can you know, to ban a Christian from putting up a Christian monument is just religious discrimination. You know, always making the argument that this is open to anybody but never expecting anybody to come there. And now they're wondering what do we do now that we can count on the Satanic Temple coming and so they're upset about us. On the one hand, you laugh, or we would laugh and say that this is a sign of our success, and we pat ourselves on the back. On the other hand, that's scary, because you know, people from the ADF, or associated with the ADF. And with Liberty Council, they're talking to Donald Trump, they're talking to people who talk to Donald Trump, they have direct lines to the executive branch of the government right now. And if they're afraid of us, if they're trying to bring us down in some way, that's something to really be aware of. And if we have somebody running around publicly saying you're gonna kill the president, well, it's not too far off the mark. I don't think it's not too far into the realm of paranoia to think we might have to deal then with the potential for FBI agents kicking down our doors or other such things that nobody wants to deal with. And you really do have to have real vigilance on making sure those things don't happen. So we're not imposing authority just to kind of do anything other than protect our membership from that kind of erratic and unreasonable behavior.

Unknown Speaker 41:30 Hang on when I come back, I'm going to talk to Lucian grieves about not just the pushback he's getting from the extreme right. But some of the accusations he's been fielding from the extreme left. Also, I want to get into this whole religion thing like what do you think about that mean? Do human beings need religion? What are the benefits of a non theistic satanic religion? We're going to get into that and more right after this. Hang on. Oh, hey, kiddo.

Unknown Speaker 42:04 How was the hell educational? Oh, learn a new trick. Yeah, the trick to a happy fulfilling life maybe I learned the mountainair on leashes, my inner peace and rip and pow or the whole cruise all you and this is spontaneous joy. Okay, that's nice. I can pass lets you do you 50 destinations worldwide from 249. Adult drop in for next winter now and save it icon past.com.

Unknown Speaker 42:41 My wonderful, amazing, fantastic. And allegedly EVO patrons get this broadcast two days early and a commercial free show. Thanks so much for supporting me at patreon.com/seth Andrews, talking here with Lucien Greaves, co founder of the Satanic Temple. That's interesting. You know, we know that the Satanic Temple takes it in the teeth from the, you know, from the evangelical right. It's also interesting to see that you guys are getting flack from some people anyway. On the left are those who say they align with the left.

Unknown Speaker 43:19 Yeah, yeah. I mean, not only now do we have like the right wing, that you know, the far right conspiracy theorists who are saying that we're, we really are sacrificing infants and all that kind of thing. But we also have no shortage of dipshits now claiming that we're secretly Nazis.

Unknown Speaker 43:38 Well, of course, I mean, you know, you

Unknown Speaker 43:40 swore I thought, I think of you sometimes because I see you've gotten that. And I see just some of the other people who have gotten that. And where it really started for us was, we had an offer from a lawyer to represent us pro bono, when we wanted to sue Twitter for her religious discrimination because somebody tweeted out a threat of our sin against our headquarters, or at least tweeted out something encouraging somebody to go burn down our temple and Salem, and I reported the tweet and Twitter came back and said, This doesn't violate our terms of service. And I thought, well, it does. Obviously, somebody wasn't looking at this. So I retweeted that tweet, which had gotten quite a bit of attention because former child actor Corey Feldman, had retweeted it. And I tweeted him and asked him why he had done that, and then he just blocked me. So I retweeted this tweet, and encouraged my followers to also report the tweet because I figured whoever looked at this at Twitter, it made a mistake. For other people reported it, it would it would come down. And so what happened was, Twitter instead suspended my account for targeted harassment against this woman who had sent out that original tweet. The idea being that you know, I guess I had gotten all my followers to be rating her and yeah, and report this tweets. So it was targeted harassment. And they even took it another step Twitter did they they suspended the Satanic Temple primary account for its association with me. So then they started getting some press and then Twitter reversed course and gave the accounts back. But they also have ignored every death threat against us. And actually, I can't I can't say necessarily every threat. I know Facebook has ignored every single death threat against us 100%. But they've they will not see a death threat against us as violating the terms of service. But with Twitter that we can't get them, we could never get them to verify us, we just felt that there was a real pattern of discriminatory behavior. But it wasn't something we would necessarily go after. Without a pro bono lawyer. Well, this lawyer approaches us he turns out to be this high profile, expensive lawyer out of Vegas work with porn, I think and other things like that. But supposed to be, you know, top of the line as far as this goes and wanted to represent us against Twitter's his law firm did actually it's not even him directly. We're working with some other guy and his law firm. But so we accepted that. And then I started getting messages from people saying, Hey, do you know he's also represented some All right characters or whatever? And I said, Well, no, I, I didn't know that. And I don't, I don't care. I don't know how he's voted. I don't really know anything. You know, I don't know about him personally, but he's not, you know, he's not speaking as a representative, the Satanic Temple, he's, he's an attorney, I guess I just think of attorneys differently than these people, you know, they're tools within the system. Incidentally, this lawyer claims to be, you know, left to the point of communist is, is how he contextualizes himself, he claims he also represents these far left organizations as well, and that he's just dedicated to free speech. So it became this kind of question of, of whether we wanted to be seen having this kind of association. And, you know, again, I couldn't understand who would hold that association against us, or why we should change anything of what we're doing, you know, or why we should not take action, just because somebody doesn't know what a lawyer is good for, is going to insist that, you know, we bought into the political views of a lawyer now. But you know, it just caused this, this uproar, eventually, and really just metastasized into this conspiracy theory, that were this gateway into pro right or Nazi thinking that what we're doing is just a cover, you know, we're just using the good name of Satanism to drop, when sometimes.

Unknown Speaker 47:56 It's a great way to put it well, I mean, you had many non whites in the documentary who would be I think, shocked and amazed to know that they were part of a Nazi organization. So

Unknown Speaker 48:07 there's, we I always kind of felt that we were going to that our kind of philosophy on proselytizing was going to come to a head on the issue of diversity, because there's been several times since the inception of the Satanic Temple where, you know, Satanism has usually been like the white kids game, you know, it's until the Satanic Temple and it's funny, because of the Satanic Temple, we're talking about diversity and Satanism. Now, where, you know, that was never talked about before. And then, you know, there's some people saying that it's not diverse enough. But there was this kind of idea that we should do outreach to minority communities. And that conflicts directly with our kind of prohibition on proselytizing, we, we, you know, you walk a fine line between letting people know who you are and clarifying misconceptions, and not proselytizing, and telling people hey, this is right for you. And I'm very much against acting like a missionary. And I can see it being deeply offensive for a white guy like myself to go into some minority community saying, like, Hey, I have this Satanism thing and I think it's right for you people. I can see that being really, really offensive and really seen as kind of a privileged position but then if you don't do that, and you're viewed is not you know, not having your your numbers up enough in the in the realm of diversity. Well, then, you know, you have some kind of systemic problem. But I just think all we can do is be as inclusive as we possibly can. We have no test for that kind of thing. We we appreciate our diversity, but we can't tell different people individually or as communities that this is for them. It might not be this is a religion. It's not a it's not a university. It's not any of these other types of you know, it's not a workplace. This is something that people have to have a deep personal attachment to to identify with. And we can't make any assumptions on what somebody's background is what somebody's cultural attachments are or anything else. They, they have to be able to come to this on their own. So, you know, when we're talking about diversity numbers and things like that, all I can say is that, certainly in the Satanic Temple, we stand by anybody who identifies with us, it doesn't matter where they came from.

Unknown Speaker 50:26 You want your demographics to be represented organically, right? And not, not some gimmick.

Unknown Speaker 50:31 Yeah. And we've seen or, you know, when, when we started, like I said, traditionally, you know, the black clad white kids middle class, they gravitate to it right away. And then, you know, as time goes on, people really realize what the Satanic Temple is about, we, we really have had a real growing diversity in the best kind. We're not going out asking people to join, we're not bringing people in just to increase our image of diversity or anything else. You know, everybody with us that people really identify with this and came to it on their own. And I think that's something to be proud of.

Unknown Speaker 51:06 You and I spoke, I guess it's been about a year and a half, and you did a great sit down interview, I'll link to that YouTube interview in the description box, it does a really good job of describing what the Satanic Temple is and what your core tenets are. I was talking about this show a few weeks ago, and I caught myself because when I was talking about the Satanic Temple, I said your quote unquote, religion. And then I stopped and thought, well, actually, I don't think I need the quotes. Because you're pretty upfront that Satanism is a religion, it's just one that is superstition, free. And even though you reject the idea of a literal God or Satan, you still embrace the word religion. Can you speak to that?

Unknown Speaker 51:47 Yeah, and I don't think it's historically a radical idea. You know, at the beginning of the Unitarian Church, you kind of had this liberal theology that talks more about seeing the Bible as this kind of generalized set of ethical principles, and not maybe a literal story, maybe the supernaturalism didn't need to be taken entirely, literally. And there's been a lot of Christian movements that have spoken to this, but other religions like Jainism and manifestations of Buddhism, Confucianism, these are non theistic as well, it's not. It's not this idea that comes completely out of left field from out of nowhere. It's something that we're doing just for legal convenience. I'll argue to my dying day that Satanism is every bit of religion, and certainly for our community, it is and deserves to be recognized as such, regardless of the fact that we don't venerate a personal Satan and view this kind of metaphorically, into me, it's kind of only logically consistent that Satanism be non theistic. If you're doing this with some kind of thought towards rejection of arbitrary authority. What kind of authority is more arbitrary than one that's claiming some kind of supernatural cause or agency for anything, that's the ultimate and arbitrary authority is claiming you have some kind of supernatural knowledge or consideration, or power or whatever. So that kind of skeptical rationalism, I think, only makes sense. But all those other elements of religion, that sense of community that ethics that the kind of mythical framework for which you contextualize yourself in this kind of socio political sphere that you're in, we have all of that. And even if none of the rest of the world was going to agree to allow to call ourselves a religion, we'd still be doing what we're doing, and I guess there would need to be a category for it. But I think when you see how people identify with this, and how many people identify with this in the things that we're doing, it becomes increasingly ludicrous to dismiss our claims to being a religious organization. And I'm hoping the film goes a long way towards at least explaining that to people if they get nothing else from it.

Unknown Speaker 54:11 The documentary film is called hail satan. It released to select theaters April the 19th. And I'm sure it'll soon be available via Amazon, iTunes, etc. Glad to call your friend assure, enjoy our conversations. I look forward to seeing you out there on the road. And I hope the film draws some positive attention your way my friend, I think the film is certainly entertaining. It's compelling and very well done and all my best with it. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 54:36 Thank you so much.

Unknown Speaker 54:38 Follow the Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter. For a complete archive of podcasts and videos products like mugs and T shirts featuring the Thinking Atheist logo, links to atheist pages and resources and details on upcoming free thought events and conventions. Log on to our website, the thinking atheist.com

Unknown Speaker 55:00 Hey kiddo How was the hell to learn anything yeah that reppin power induces spontaneous joy the icon pass lets you do you 50 destinations worldwide from 249 adult drop in for next winter now and save icon past.com