Podcasts/The Satanists Nextdoor Ep46 Internal Strife and the Path Forward for TST

Backstory

In May 2024, another mass departure started from TST. This started after a series of emails from Doug Misicko, aka Lucien Greaves, were published, in which a Minister was fired from TST.

The spat centred around Doug's authoritarian management style and aggressive responses to criticism — which worsened as internal discontent spread and he doubled down.

In this context, Doug appeared as a guest on the podcast series "The Satanists Next Door", to defend his actions. This was received poorly by the membership.

A number of TST Chapters ultimately disaffiliated during this schism, so far including:

• TST Minnesota
• TST Florida
• TST Colorado
• TST Australia
• TST Alabama
• TST North Carolina

Show Notes (as published)

In this episode, Tommy and Lilin shift their focus from the planned discussion on abortion laws in Texas to address the recent internal conflicts within The Satanic Temple (TST). Joined by Lucien Greaves, they delve into the controversy surrounding TST leadership and ministerial disputes that have erupted over the past week.

The conversation begins with Lilin recounting her experience of discovering and confronting a group within TST that was sharing derogatory memes and discussing potentially harmful actions against the organization. As the situation escalated, it became clear that this was more than just idle chatter, leading to serious concerns about the intentions of some members.

Lucien provides his perspective on the matter, explaining the gravity of the situation and the steps taken to address it. He highlights the importance of maintaining professionalism and the challenges of managing an organization where internal strife can easily undermine the collective mission. The discussion also touches on the broader implications of these internal issues, especially in the context of the upcoming election year and the ongoing fight for religious and reproductive rights.

Throughout the episode, the hosts emphasize the need for transparency, accountability, and unity within TST. They call on members to engage constructively, uphold the organization's values, and support each other in the face of external and internal challenges. This episode serves as a reminder of the importance of solidarity and the collective effort required to advance TST's mission.

Join Tommy, Lilin, and Lucien as they navigate this complex and contentious topic, urging listeners to stay informed, get involved by contacting info@thesatanictemple.com, and contribute to a stronger, healthier, more cohesive TST community. https://www.satanistsnextdoor.com/ep46-internal-strife-and-the-path-forward-for-tst/

Transcript

Intro

Lilin: Welcome, dear listeners, to Satanists Next Door. We're your hosts, Lilin Lavin-

Tommy: and Tommy Lavin.

Lilin: Whether you're an open-minded curious onlooker or fellow Satanist seeking camaraderie, our goal is to share our personal experiences and delve into the intricate tapestry of Satanism in our daily lives, occasionally inviting other guests to share their unique perspectives: leaving no pentagram, unturned. We'll explore how our beliefs shape our views on society, dive into struggles and triumphs we've encountered, and reveal the humanity that unites us all. So grab your favorite chalice and join us on this captivating journey. Satanists Next Door is ready to peel back the curtain and offer you a glimpse into our world, one captivating episode at a time.

[music]

[1:00]

Tommy: Hello and welcome to another episode of Satanists Next Door. So today we were originally going to talk about abortion, the abortion laws in Texas, you know, given that our daughter just gave birth to our first grandson and, you know the conflicting emotions that go around that with all of these restrictive laws, but giving, you know, all the shit that went down this week with inside of, you know, TST leadership, some of the ministerial stuff, I thought we should cover that and actually get the story out there, you know, why, you know, the whole nine yards. And with us to help us do this, we have Lucien. Hey, Lucien.

Doug [ Lucien Greaves ]: Hey.

Tommy: So-

Lilin: I figure we should probably just start from the beginning,

Tommy: Start from the beginning.

Lilin describes reporting gossip on Slack to Executive Ministry

[1:51]

Lilin: I wasn't even sure if we'd have this conversation, just knowing that it would be a tense thing to do, and there was already a lot of opinions, but I think kind of in the spirit of what I wrote, I thought it was important to follow it up for other people to understand that weren't necessarily in a position to read what I'd shared or to understand the full picture of what was happening. So my daughter recently had a baby and we were all celebrating together. I was helping them with, with all that comes with it, you know, the sleeplessness and just having someone to kind of talk you through all of that. And I started seeing some messages in a conversation about some memes or something that had just come across. And I was only half paying attention, kind of figuring it was just the normal still, you know, [Tommy: bullshit] stuff that people shared. So it wasn't until I started seeing other people also having this conversation. And there was a group where many people had gotten together during other really difficult situations that would pop up now and again. You didn't get a lot of them, but there would be serious things that people would join together really quickly to find ways to deal with it and make sure that it really didn't affect congregations and people in general and provide support. So when I saw this group become active, I assumed that was what was happening. So I went in and they had shared a link to a Signal chat. So I went in just to kind of see what the conversation was and what the plan was. And they were talking about the memes, but I quickly realized that they were in favor of what was shared and granted the memes were, in my opinion, not very tasteful. They were, you know, something that was divisive when people had already expressed that there was division and there was anger towards Executive Ministry. There was a lot of people feeling in certain ways. And instead of talking about it constructively, a group of people decided to share some really...

Tommy: Untasteful.

Lilin: yeah,and just rude. Honestly, it was rude. But that wasn't, that's in and of itself is not an issue, right? People had the right to blow off steam, but it's when they started talking about all these things and it became progressively negative. And then I started seeing conversations about moving content. Not that they had done it, not that, you know, it was something that they were thinking about, they had talked about, and then it went into emails, it went into files. Again, not saying that they did it, but they were planning it. They were talking about how you would do it, what you would move, and what that would look like. And I started to really panic because I knew several of these people; one of the ones in my own congregation and some of them I've known for quite a while. And I felt really horrible because I realized I was going to have to make a decision knowing some of these folks were in committees that would take these kind of complaints. I didn't know exactly what to do. I hadn't really had a lot of serious discussions with Executive Ministry when it came to these situations. So do I send it to them? What does that look like? What's going to happen? And what will this look like for these people that I consider my friends? Because this was not lighthearted stuff. It was definitely things I kind of panicked about. And I wasn't sure, excuse me, where to go with it. So-

Tommy: Well, I would say you also didn't know what it would mean for you, too.

Lilin: Well, I had an idea because I'd seen some stuff in the past where people had talked about things and I knew that there were some individuals that would get very negative. But I didn't know how much. I didn't know the ramifications. And I definitely had some concerns. But I figured, well, yeah, maybe I won't be someone people like very much. But honestly, if they see what happened then surely that would make sense to them. And they would want to maybe think about a little bit, look at it a little bit, and then they would realize, yeah, that there was a gravity to this situation that merited doing something about it. So I decided to write out what I saw and try to also include- I had seen a lot of comments in the community. I tried to have a few conversations with people in my region. I had known things that I couldn't share with people, obviously, because I had a responsibility to send that somewhere else for other people to deal with it. But I was really aggravated because a lot of people made a lot of light-hearted comments. And I didn't agree. I had a lot more context than they did. So I couldn't say why I was so angry, but I definitely expressed, why would you guys be doing this? We have so many things happening this year. This is a very heavy election year, a lot of people are already stressed and scared. There's a lot of reproductive rights issues. There's LGBTQIA issues. There's a lot of really weird stuff happening in the Supreme Court. Our religion has literally been called into question. Materials being taken from school- it was like, why are you wasting your time with this stupid crap? There's so much to do. Why don't we just work on doing that? And people actually got irritated with me and, you know, fine, but there was so much going on and I didn't understand. So I wrote this all out. I took in some of the things the community had mentioned. A lot of people complained about you know, what about the tenants[sic] and, you know, EM's obligated to follow these tenants[sic] just like everyone else. And what about the invocation? You know, what about the invocation would align with the things? And as this all unfolded, the letters that had been shared between the individual that made the memes and Lucien. And rightfully, it was very insulting and negative. So Lucien, I'm not going to put words in your mouth. I'll let you take care of that later- it seemed, had confronted the situation in as eloquent a manner as possible considering just the egregious nature of it. And I don't even feel it was bad. It was not done in bad taste, I thought: it was, you know, pretty to the point. And then they shared, of course, the response, right? So people are having this whole conversation, but well, they should be held to a higher standard. And, you know, people have a right to feelings. And all these things should be taken into the context of the tenants[sic] and the, you know, spirit of which we put all these things out. And I'm like, well, what about their feelings? You do realize they're people, right? So that kind of started to get heated. And I said, you know, it doesn't even matter. I'm not going to get into these discussions. Nothing healthy is coming from it. I wrote out what I saw going on. I tried to present it to the community in a way that it I felt would make sense. I'd already shared what I had seen.

Tommy: You shared what you saw with EM.

[18:06]

Lilin: with EM and I- and I wanted to know, you know- I know you're getting a lot of flack for this. People are acting like you guys are on a paranoid witch hunt. I don't feel comfortable with that. I need people to understand you guys didn't just suddenly get a wild hare and say, you know, let's just go on a spree and start just going after people for the hell of it. So- so I wrote this out in the hopes that- and in the spirit that, it would bring transparency. All I ever see people say is there's no communication. There's no transparency. And I felt the onus was on me because I'm the reason that these individuals were brought to EM's attention. And I didn't give any guidance on what should happen. I just said, here's what I saw, presented everything as I saw it. I didn't do it in my own words. I literally just gave them what happened. And the decisions that came after that were based on that information. But what I really needed was for the community to understand this wasn't some wild, you know, [Tommy interrupts indistinctly] off the wall witch hunt. And so I felt that this would help to clear that up. I truly thought that people would use all this, you know, reason and logic that we talk about so lawfully and don't actually seem to apply to ourselves, which I found really upsetting. So, you know, that's pretty much where I found myself. And then, um, yeah, I'll, I'll kind of give it to Lucien to talk about his perspective. But that's what happened. And I really feel like,you know, granted people have every right to feel the way they're going to feel. And I don't begrudge people if they're angry with me. I do hope that they maybe take some time to look at what I actually, um, shared and why I felt compelled to do what I did.

[9:36]

Tommy: Well, and I, I would jump in with one thing really quick. Um, just for context, you shared this only within the TST community.

Lilin: Yes, it's not like not just the TST community. It was strictly in the Minister Slack, um, which is only to ministry and congregation heads are part of that. And it was limited, so only people that could view it were people that were in TST and had TST org access. And it wasn't even made downloadable. So the hope was that it, you know, I was sharing it with people that should- not should. I should not say that. People that I felt would be able to look at it and hopefully kind of parse it and see the spirit that, like I said, the spirit that I was shared and reason it and come to why I just wanted them to come to a conclusion either way.

[10:21] Tommy: Right. So I wasn't blasted all over Twitter and social media and all that sort of shit. Cool. I just wanted to clarify that part.

[10:28] Lilin: Thank you. So yeah, I guess, Lucien, I'll hand it to you because I can't speak for you, but I'll let you speak for yourself.

Doug describes firing a Minister for spreading memes about him

[10:34]

Doug: Well, yeah, let me talk about what happens in the most proximate events. And then I'll feel like further background context to it. But most proximately, I got these screenshots of a group of Ministers acting really childish on Facebook, talking about how they've outgrown TST and generally talking about what a piece of shit I am and how I really don't do anything but post on Patreon. And their major beef was that we weren't having a convention this year. We weren't having SatanCon, that we had the audacity to cancel it. And apparently, the function of EM is only to finance the parties that we have annually. And I thought that was extremely ignorant given the intensity of things that are happening in this election year. All the things we've been dealing with and how little interaction I've seen with the ministry in general when it comes to some of these primary issues. And I really have never asked people to be engaged with reproductive rights, After School Satan club or any of these things if they don't have an interest in them. But to openly be disrespecting me and EM for working on these issues, especially when you're talking about politicians working to literally illegalize our practice and to act like this is something superfluous that we're doing seemed to me is absolutely insane.

Tommy: Mmm.

[12:05]

Doug: And so I emailed the primary Minister who had been posting these memes. And I laid out my grievances. I said, these are the things I'm working on. This is the duress we're under. This is the situation we're in with this. This is the dire state of needs we have. And we're working with people who identify as Ministers professionally, acting this unprofessional in saying these types of things publicly. And furthermore, being that they don't pay dues, they don't pay membership fees. There's no startup costs. And they're using this kind of network we had put together and in using it as the resource for the things they do. The fact that they appear to be attacking my livelihood by congratulating each other for not subscribing to my content and not reading it either seemed insane to work with that kind of people. Like, people who would actually discourage one another from possibly contributing to my income that makes it possible for me to work over full time hours for this organization. They enjoy the benefits of.

[13:17]

Doug: So I sent out a letter to this Minister kind of outlining this. And I get a shitty reply back. And the point of this message that, or this reply to me, was that the real problem here- and I'm paraphrasing. I don't remember the verbatim, but the real problem was my, my ignorant removal from the real day to day "boots on the ground" of TST. So my response to that was, well, then get gone. You know, I can't work with this. You got to go.

[13:46]

Doug: And so he was fired. And I messaged people and said, remove him. That's it. He's up. And I knew that would cause an uproar because I have never done that kind of thing before.

[13:59]

Doug: And you know, you see that now in the reactions, all of a sudden they're acting like I'm a dictator. But you know, it is a weird kind of dictator in which you didn't even know that I was a character who actually had the power to remove you from your professional position in representing us. But when you have somebody who's going to disparage the management of the organization and the organization itself and talk about having left the organization, I felt it was- or having outgrown the organization, I feel it's completely legitimate to suggest maybe you should leave the organization. And the subject heading of the email I had sent said invitation to leave. And I know that these things will be posted publicly. So I kind of gave the go ahead in advance. And that's why I kind of took the effort of posting my grievances because I feel like part of the issue here- and it's the reason I'm talking about this tonight. I mean, people will say I'm just being provocative and that I'm just going to cause more negative response.

[15:02]

Doug: But I feel like this comes after years of feeling held hostage by a group of people under the threat, that if I make any move that they disagree with, they're going to go wide to the public with what an abusive character I am or make any type- or any number of accusations. And we've seen it happen before. And to be honest, it has prevented us from doing a lot of things before. And in fact, by design, Executive Ministry had not been managing the ministry. We've been at a state of remove from it because we realized earlier on that the Satanic Temple had a real problem of people coming in and wanting to change the organization to fit their needs. If they wanted to be focused on other political issues, their own pet projects, they want the kind of latitude to speak in the name of the organization without a focus message that we might agree upon. And I just don't think the organization could survive in that way. And I don't think intelligent people would want to be part of the organization.

Lilin: Mm-hmm.

[16:09]

Doug: If they had to worry that in no case, and it's do we take a stance of institutional neutrality and act more like a religion where we guide people generally on their ethics and provide a sense of community for them, rather than dictating the minutia of what they think. So, I mean, if you want to talk about dictatorship, I think it's more than just a matter of the single person in charge against a body of people because sometimes the mob can act in a very hypocritical, tyrannical way themselves. And I think we were dealing with a mob of people who really wanted to dictate the fine granular details of everybody's belief. So, I felt it was entirely appropriate to fire the Minister [Lilin: Mm-hmm.] and that's what it is.

[16:56]

Doug: And honestly, at that point, I was inviting more resignations because I felt we had really developed a negative culture in which people coming in to our ministry were immediately adopted into this culture where it's understood that they're at war with EM. And I've always done my best to consider the other side and to assume that I'm wrong and try to look at it from the other point of view. But at the point where we've been so long now in a position where EM has not been making any demands of anybody, has not been dictating anything, and everybody signed on to the standards they agree to in advance. And they still managed to attack me, to attack my livelihood, and suggest they want to overthrow EM. And it's been happening for a long time. And I ignore it for the most part. We ignore it.

Doug discusses SatanCon: and the "tyranny" of not being able to control "the public message"

[17:53]

Doug: And when I think things really started to fall apart was last SatanCon in Boston, EM decided that we wanted to throw a convention for everybody. So we delegate people to do that. And as so often happens with these projects, the project almost becomes its own schism.

Lilin: Mm-hmm.

Doug: And we had first our- our first SatanCon in Scottsdale, not long after the pandemic, I guess 2022. And then, you know, the last one was 2023. And the Scottsdale one I didn't go to, but we chose Scottsdale because we had a lawsuit in Scottsdale and we wanted to bring attention onto that whole issue that we're dealing with there. And I won't bother to go into that because that's superfluous detail. But Boston was similar. We wanted to have SatanCon in Boston because we thought it could help bring people's attention to problems we're having with Boston and its discrimination against us as a minority religion. We feel like it really hasn't gotten enough media attention. We feel like our rights were openly being violated in the courts. And now we're doing much better in the appeal courts. And it looks like that will go in our favor. But in the lower court, the judge was all about pushing us out and not even listening to the arguments and acting very, very rash and not proper behaviour for a judge. And we felt there was a real lack of media coverage regarding that.

[19:26]

Doug: So when we were putting together SatanCon, we wanted to agree on what the kind of message was going to be behind it. And that message included the fact that Boston had treated us that way. That's why we were there. And we had speakers and they have had these different events and everything. But we wanted to have some kind of vetting process as to what the public message would be. I work under parameters when I'm speaking on behalf of the Satanic Temple. And yet it seems like a lot of people have the idea that when they speak on behalf of the Satanic Temple, they should be able to say whatever they want. And it's nothing but tyranny to tell them otherwise. But there again, you have to consider there's a certain tyranny and the idea of identifying yourself with something and having no idea one day to the next, what somebody's going to say in its name and how that will reflect upon you.

Tommy: Uh-huh.

Doug rants about an Anti-Blue Lives Matter protest that took place at SatanCon 2023

[20:26]

Doug: So we were really disappointed when in front of all the media, they decided to go with the performance that was completely off script as far as we knew, it wasn't run past us. And there was a Bible torn up and a Blue Lives Matter flag was torn up. And we wondered how did this happen? Nobody told us this would happen. And when we sent a letter to some of the people involved with that and said that it was not, you know, it was not in our best interest to do that. Think what you will of the police, but it's in our best interest to not get involved with "All Cops Are Bastards" type of protest or ripping a Blue Lives Matter's flag. Because we work very closely with the Salem PD in preserving our fucking lives on a day to day basis. [Tommy: yup] And the Salem PD is good enough oftentimes- park a car directly across from our headquarters. They contact us right away if anything's wrong. They show up immediately and we don't want anything to damage that relationship. The relationship was already strong enough that when it turned out we were on Fox News ripping up a Blue Lives Matter flag, we were actually asked about that. And we were given the opportunity to say that really wasn't us. And you know, it's scary to us. Like if you give somebody a reason to wait an extra 30 seconds or fill another cup of coffee before coming to HQ, that could be the matter between life or death for us. [Tommy: Uh-huh] And I think we made that clear in our letter to them. And they actually, some of them got back to us, very offended that we had the audacity to suggest that we could put words in their mouths, that we could do such a thing, that we could say this.

[22:15]

And kind of a negativity against the management of TST, the idea of EM was, I felt, very prevalent in SatanCon, at least from people who had been organizing in upper levels, that kind of thing. You know, a lot of the attendees, of course, were happy to see me got pictures with me, great crowd, great audience, showed up to Satanic Planet and things like that. And it was it was really great to see that happening. But there was also just this palpable anti-me, anti-EM sense going on. And I could feel it at the time. And I felt like something was really developing.

Doug discusses being pictured at TST HQ with David Silverman and people "trying to have me cancelled"

[22:53]

Doug: And I feel like what did develop was that eventual outrage of me being caught in a picture with a known transphobe as they referred to him- David Silverman, the former head of American Atheists: stopped in the Satanic Temple, got a picture with me at the Baphomet. And next thing I knew, everybody was pissed off because they're telling me that he's now a known transphobe. And I really had no idea what his positions are in these things; still haven't even bothered to look it up or ask him about it in light of all his controversy. But Ministers in particular made a public display of really trying to harrangue me, harass me, push me out of the organization because I was in this picture and it had embarrassed them. And ultimately, The Atlantic wrote an article and The Atlantic was not really, I don't think, on the side of the people who were trying to have me cancelled for lack of a better term.

Tommy: Mm-hmm.

Doug complains about Ministers' "open disrespect" for Executive Ministry

[23:57]

Doug: But that didn't cause any introspection with people. I think they still held on this narrative that somehow I'm embarrassing, somehow I've gotten out of hand. And even I had seen people talking about- and still see people talking about our legal battles, campaigns, the things I work on on a daily basis, as being my pet legal projects that really aren't- don't have anything to do with what TST really is. [Tommy: snorts] And I felt like that was so weird because it goes beyond not having respect for what you do. And then- but it's too much to ask and not have open disrespect heaped upon you. And as we kind of, as I kind of talked about these things with people, people began to throw our Head of Ministry [note: Penemue, aka Greg Stevens] under the bus and say that he was really fomenting these types of feelings and that the message they were getting more often than not was that, "EM is not TST". "You don't really answer to Executive Ministry". You know, "this is, this is bigger than that. It's bigger than them". And it's a very kind of divisive message. And to be completely honest, I was getting really pissed with our Head of Ministry for a while. And I was recommending his removal. And I was having a difficult time for a while convincing others of that. And it carried on for a while. But I had stopped having communication with them. I let it be known that my trust was completely burnt out on that front. I didn't trust him anymore. And I wasn't going to I wasn't going to work with him. And I felt that he should be removed, in order to help try to build a culture in which we didn't attack one another.

Doug claims he would like to step down, but nobody else could handle his job

[25:43]

Doug: And I feel like some of what really got some of the wolves hungry, was that I had expressed a desire to kind of step out of my position. That is something I would really love if I had ever been able to do, and assign somebody else. But it was, you know, everybody was ravenous, I think, over that idea, and then trying to prove my general worthlessness to try to insert themselves. And I felt like it was so very irresponsible. And it was- their opinion seemed to shift with whatever wins were blowing at the time that honestly, I didn't think they could they could handle the job. And in the fact- in the way they talked about it, I think showed that they didn't quite understand what the job was to begin with.

Doug claims being "pushed out" for "polarized politics" is "not becoming of ministerial conduct"

[26:30]

Doug: So this was kind of the backdrop leading up to all this. And we have these cases going and we have these threats against us. And we had, you know, we've had an intense amount, an incredible amount of work coming up. And then we had our recent- the recent bombing attempt on our, uh, on our headquarters. And I found myself in consultation with people from all different branches of law enforcement while they're investigating this case, trying to find out who was trying to kill us. And all the while, they're not telling me what they're turning up in the investigation, but they're telling me I really need to make serious efforts to preserve my life. You know, they're talking about security measures and talking about me getting a trained dog and things like that. And so I'm wondering what they know. I'm really concerned in all the while. I'm getting shit on like this. I'm getting messages of support from people on the outside. And I'm seeing this on the inside. And I also knew that there was a growing presence of people from the outside who have been messaging us all along in saying that they had found this culture of ours, this internal culture of ours to be impenetrable, and this kind of isolated friend group in which these kinds of demands of polarized politics came into play. And if you didn't, and if you were in some kind of disagreement with any small point on these things, you would be pushed out. And I felt like that was not really becoming of ministerial conduct. And people should be acting diplomatically. And they should be able to lend guidance to people rather than forcing an ethos upon them, bringing people to certain revelations rather than dictating to them by fiat, because I don't feel that's terribly satanic.

Tommy: [more sympathetic noises]

Doug claims that enforcing his ideas of ideological purity is "not fascistic"

[28:24]

Doug: And when, you know, and on that issue, you know, me being a tyrant [Tommy: scoffing ] and that being unsatanic and making these demands, I think we're going to have to make the distinction between running an organization and running a nation. [Tommy: more sycophantic scoffing noises] You know, if we were running a nation, and we have a population of people and we were running a diverse pluralism, it would be completely out of line to demand that there's Satanists. [Lilin: Yep] That would be the opposite of religious liberty. If you are an organization of Satanists fighting for religious liberty and fighting for pluralism, it's not also fascistic to demand that that is what you do. And that is what you identify with. That's just the nature of doing fucking things. [Tommy: Seems like common sense.] So those are the lines drawn. You're either going to be a part of this and want to work with this or not. And the thing is, as I said, I was always going towards this kind of knee-jerk response of my own to assume that I'm wrong, right? [Lilin: Right.] But when I've gone for years by not giving demands to people, not even having contact and interaction with them, not telling them to do anything. And yet, they're still making the same kind of complaints, claiming that I'm difficult to work with when they've never heard from me at all. It owes me that these complaints are going to happen one way or the other. And we really have to just make sure we're working with people who want to work with us, or we're never going to move forward.

[29:54]

Doug: And the time is, is now. There's just too much to do. There's too much to be done. I see too many people who have wanted to be volunteers, saying they've been pushed away. I know too many people who have resigned from TST because of this kind of internal conflict culture that's been fomented there. And I'm also kind of humbled and depressed that since this has happened, since I fired that Minister, and since, of course, a group of Ministers ran to post it on Reddit, the email I sent, the response, and the fact I fired this guy, I've gotten an outpouring of support. It seems like the people who, the only people who think this behavior was appropriate are the people who were involved in it. And they seem like they don't get out much and talk to other people.

Lilin: Mm-hmm.

Doug claims that his "general silence" gives his detractors the "sense of security" that "the record will never be set straight"

[30:45]

Doug: They truly seem isolated. They seem like they're in a negative, uh, uh, dysfunctional feedback loop where they convince each other of their justifications, and they just continue to carry on from there without considering what other people are saying. And I didn't really know how it would be received that I take finally the move of removing bad actors. But I have to admit, I have never had, in recent years, a stronger uptick in subscribers and followers than when this happened. And I found that so many people have kind of been waiting for this to happen. And a lot of people who resigned in the past, and I didn't even realize they had resigned for these reasons, were reaching out now. And I feel like I just have to speak about these things because I hate seeing a different narrative take off. And I hate the fact that my general silence on not trying to amplify these issues within our organization have given people that sense of security that they can say what they want, and nobody will ever step in to correct them, or that the record will never be set straight, in that it's going to be a one-way beating propaganda-wise, where we'll be quiet and they'll be able to claim that they've been abused in all manner of way, all manner of times, in that just seems to be the way it has been for so long.

Doug discusses events surrounding the removal of Head of Ministry Penemue, aka Greg Stevens

[32:15]

Doug: And our Head of Ministry had stepped down at the- first of this month [was his last day in the position that he held. And so, you know, I was paying attention to ministry more. I had been talking about unifying the organization and the fact that ministry was going to be run under EM, in that we were going to have a unified mission-driven organization, and that's just the way it's going to be. And if people had bothered to read what I was writing, maybe they wouldn't have been so surprised. So, the Head of Ministry stepped down on the first, and by whatever it was, the ninth or something like that, removing a Minister, ninth, tenth, eleventh, whatever. So, I remove a Minister, and, you know, this causes panic. And in the course of this panic, nobody seems to consider that what they did was inappropriate, that maybe they should have some professional conduct standards, that maybe somebody should apologize, maybe somebody should take some ownership for this kind of thing happening. No! They started melting down, and they make a mad run on internal documents.

[33:29]

Doug:And in background chatter that they don't know I'm also getting screenshots of, they are speaking openly of taking our internal documents and doing their own thing. And people complain that we have NDAs, and I wonder if those fucking people have ever had a job, [Lilin: Mmm.] because we deal with documents that can contain people's social security numbers. We do everything we can to maintain people's anonymity when they want it and use their pseudonyms. But we also have personnel documents. We also have proprietary operational documents. This is what an organization is. [Tommy:Yep!] This is how an organization works. You don't come into an organization and claim that you have ownership of any part of that. You disagree with the organization. You feel the organization is going another way. It's too fucking bad. The organization still holds the documents.

[34:21]

Doug: We started locking people out of their access, because apparently they didn't realize that we would be able to see from an IT perspective that these mass downloads are happening. So we start locking people out of their accounts, sending them messages saying, "This is why you're locked out of your account. Like, why was this going on?" And people start resigning. People start resigning and saying, "Now we're going on a mad witch hunt." [Tommy: chuckling] All they did was nothing. And I just went insane, and now heads are coming off, and they need to scramble and get all the assets and resources they can and take off with them or, kind of hold them hostage for the next time around when they try to push me out of the organization, and use that material or whatever. And so it was a panic kind of perpetuated by themselves. And then our former Head of Ministry, who had resigned, he removes people from our ordination council. And then they think, "Well, we've dissolved the ordination council, so here's just another part of this lopping of heads and this mass dismissal that just came out of the blue, because now the story starts that I just sent an insulting email about some light-hearted memes... So somebody posted the logs that showed that the removals from the ordination council were actually done by the prior Head of Ministry, who still had access at that time. Now we've gotten rid of it.[laughs] And then last night, we get this bizarre ransom letter from the former Head of Ministry. And it says that if, you know, sorry, he set up a TST dot link, which was a link shortener account thing, and that he had done this with the own money and didn't ask for compensation. And therefore, he was going to hold on to this, and he was going to hold on to this Sammael archive that he had put together, which was rituals and documents from the ministry. And he wasn't going to give those to us. Unless we posted this message on our, our- ministry Slack for like an hour and then sent them a screenshot, like total ransom notes shit. And the message said that, of course, that he had been lied about and that what had really happened was that he didn't really remove people from the Ordination Council (but that he had). And that, nonetheless, he had, he claimed that he had only done it because somebody else was removed and other people were suspended, and there was literally nobody left. And in any case, EM could add them back at any time, which was ridiculous, because the fact that anybody was removed or suspended from their accounts for mass downloads did not justify him removing anybody. He still didn't have to do that. So this message, even if posted, wouldn't have made him look any better, I don't think to begin with. But the offer was that if we posted this message and then sent to improve that we did, he might be willing to sell us these assets, that have been set up in our name. So obviously the answer to that was no. [Tommy laughs] And we move forward. And that's pretty much the entirety of the situation now.

Doug bemoans a "lack of introspection" among his critics

[37:54]

Doug: And in all this time, as I said, I haven't seen any real introspection from people. And I think they've been waiting for me to learn my lesson from all of this, because by God, do I not realize they're going to leave? And with some of these people, I am counting on it. I'm telling you, if you don't want to be here, leave, just go. There really are plenty of good people still. And I've been getting messages from them. Believe me, people feel like they've been silenced by these bullies within the organization. They feel like they can't work with people. I know people who feel like they've been pushed out. And I get messages from people who are potential volunteers, really productive community members who have interest in doing various things with TST and seem to be very competent. And they're willing to step in and they're willing to do these things. And yaknow, if people, I'm happy with anybody that wants to stay. I'm not saying I'm dissatisfied with everybody by any means. A lot of those messages are coming from inside the house.

[Tommy: laughs Yeah.]

Doug claims to be a stoic, but he's "taken so much abuse" and people "don't realize I'm actually a person"

[39:03]

Doug: The loudest people, though, are this group. And they are so certain that they're right. And they're so loud about it. And I think they've just gotten to a point where people are- feel beaten. And they're not willing to argue that case with them. And they're not willing to have this angry mob descend upon them. And I've taken so much abuse from this crowd, I think. And I've never said that. I've never really talked about that. I always want to put forward a more stoic face. And I've always wanted to be the guy who can take it and feel like, I, okay, I am the guy in the news. I am the guy they see as a celebrity. I'm the guy they see as being in power. They don't realize I'm actually a person. They don't realize how much they beat on me. But it's time I started talking about that. Because now I started looking in the context of, how could I put somebody into my position in a culture in an institutional culture that's going to treat them that way? Because I feel like it could be anybody. Whoever's going to be in that position, they've developed a frame of mind in which they're going to attack, disparage, and ultimately try to ruin that person. Whether they realize that's what they're doing or not, or if that's just part of a dysfunctional social dynamic, they have failed to break out of. It's something that's very real. And I don't think it's something many people would survive in their jobs. And it's something I'm not going to fucking tolerate anymore. And that's, yaknow, my hopeful, happy-go-lucky optimistic message future of productive going forward in TST.

[all laugh]

Tommy argues that if you don't like the organization then you should leave rather than advocate for change

[40:48]

Tommy: Well, yeah, I mean, I can't count the amount of times that I tried to make the very basic argument on social media or even internally on the Minister Slack and stuff. That TST is an organization. You can be a Satanist and not be part of TST. But if you're part of TST, if you're part of an organization, if you're part of any organization and you're in a leadership role, and you start talking shit about leadership or the organization, or you start actively planning stuff, against, negative stuff against that organization, you're going to be asked to lead. This is like common. This is job 101. I was like, how are you all not understanding this? This seems really fucking basic to me. And if you don't like it, if you actually just for some reason hate the organization, then leave. And people would argue back and challenge back. And like you said, I heard the whole TST, or EM doesn't equal TST sort of thing. I got that argument. A lot of the stuff that you said was arguments that I would hear back. And it just seems so fucking basic to me. Have you never worked anywhere?

[42:07]

Lilin: I have to say that was one of the hardest things is- I've tried not to take any position either way. EM does what EM does. And I felt the SOC, we did hat the SOC did. And my hope was that they at some point worked in conjunction. And I realized very quickly that, working in the SOC, that the SOC felt it was a body onto itself. They demanded all the rights and privileges. And yet at the same time felt very, almost offended that EM almost felt like they were supposed to have any kind of involvement at all. And I found that very odd. So as I watched-

Doug explicitly states that he owns TST [and implies that if members don't like it, they should leave]

[42:36]

Doug (interrupting): People are offended that EM thinks they own the organization, but I would like to tell them we own the organization. Malcolm and I co-own the organization. And I see people all the time questioning whether we're doing any work. And I would be able to tolerate that if it weren't very public facing. We are working all the fucking time. We don't have time for our lives, you know? Pretty much 100% of the time we're working on things. And I have barely enough time to work on the things that actually get me paid.

Tommy: Yeah, the one thing that I-

Doug (talking over him): That's just something I have no sympathy for that viewpoint. And I have a very difficult time taking it seriously that anybody arrived at that conclusion. Or if they did, that's a failure of their own ability to actually look at things and evaluate evidence. And whatever their failure is, I think it shows a lack of competence to hold a professional position in an organization like this one. And if we don't take it seriously, clearly nobody else will. And if we're taking this organization seriously, we need to demand at least the basic standards of conduct that Ministers representing us at least advocate for the organization.

Doug denies that TST is a cult

[44:00]

Tommy: Yeah. And that's not cult behavior.

Lilin: Right. I heard that said a lot.

Tommy:This is like, again, organization 101 sort of stuff. I can't count the amount of times that I said the same thing. TST is owned by EM. The SOC was given freedom, not ownership. They were given freedom. [Lilin: Mm-hmm] And somehow, with that freedom, they thought they had ownership and they thought they had power over EM. And I'm like, how do you not understand this? I mean, it literally--

[44:31]

Doug: They- They call it a cult because that's a pejorative form- [Tommy: Yeah.] -of religious organization that you disagree with.

[Tommy: Yeah.]

Doug: But if you can take your definition of a cult and find that it applies to any job, then you're a little bit off course.

[editor's note: a formal definition of cult warning signs from the Cult Education Institute can be found at ]

The panel discuss whether volunteers should try to steer the organisation (spoiler: no)

[44:46]

Tommy: Right. I tried to break it down in other ways. Okay. Let's pretend this isn't TST. Let's pretend this is the children's cancer organization. And you're a volunteer there. And you're given a leadership position. And you start spreading memes and talking shit about the members of the board. Guess what that organization is going to do with you? They're going to fucking remove you.

Lilin, sarcastically: Even if you're a volunteer, though?

Tommy: Yeah. Even if you're a volunteer. And oh, by the way--

[45:19]

Doug (interrupting): You know, let me talk about that idea that volunteers deserve more deference when it comes to that kind of thing. I disagree. The fact that it's volunteers makes it even less forgivable on their parts. [Tommy:Yeah.] When somebody's working a paid job, they might have the excuse of being able to say like, look, I need the paycheck. I'm not able to look for another job right now. [Tommy: Right.] Of course, I don't believe in this or the mission. I'm getting paid. You know, I totally understand that. When you're a volunteer, there's no excuse for you not identifying with the organization and the cause. If it's tedium to you, if you don't agree with it, and it's not just a paycheck, [Tommy: Leave.] [forcefully] just go.

[46:00]

Tommy: Yeah. I wouldn't stay in an organization if I hated the leadership. If I thought the organization was moving in a different direction, if I didn't agree with it, if I hated the people that were in charge, why the fuck would I stay in that organization? Unless I was there to try and stir up trouble, you know, unless I was to try and do some sort of a, you know, some sort of a coup or some shit like that. You know, and I had so many people disagreeing with me. Oh, no, that's not what it is. It's just memes. And it's like, this is so much more than just memes. This is if you think-

Lilin: It was a symptom of a greater issue, really.

Tommy: Right. If you think this is just about a fucking meme, you're so fucking lost. And- I don't know.

Lilin: And I just, you know, the reason why I felt this had to happen is, you know, starting the year off, we had people literally go drive states away- (more than once, obviously, now) to destroy things and to claim that TST, Satanist, Satanism, these things are not valid. They don't deserve a space in the religious sphere that that's only reserved for very specific, you know, groups that get to use that term. And here we have a group of people that see this happening. They see these things unfolding. And instead of taking those things seriously, the things I thought we all joined an organization to participate in and to do something about, they've decided that they're going to be team "on our own". And they're going to do this all themselves. And they're going to miraculously make all these changes in something that's taken at least 10 years of active work on behalf of the people that they like to call the ivory tower group. And I was just outraged, to be honest, to see this kind of thing happening. And I was also heartbroken because these are people I held such esteem for and had so many wonderful interactions and thought I was really working with a group of people I could collaborate with. And I was proud of that. I was so proud of that. And I know now that at this point, I've lost that relationship. Those relationships are gone. The things that I had worked hard on that I was proud of, I can no longer participate in because those people have very strong feelings. And I accept that. I accept their feelings. I accept their anger. That's fine. But I thought we were all here to accomplish the same thing. And that was the biggest heartbreak to me.

Tommy argues that Lilin should receive more "compassion and empathy" for snitching to management

[48:18]

Tommy: Yeah. Well, and you- you see the the term compassion and empathy used as a get-out-of-jail-free card. You know, well, what about compassion and empathy? What about compassion and empathy? And I looked and I was like, well, what about compassion and empathy for the person who did the right thing? They saw something wrong was- was going on. They saw that something was being planned, that was malicious. They didn't know who to go to. And they brought it to the people's attention that they should have, you know, they did- is- is- does compassion and empathy go out the window when people are doing something wrong because it's your buddy? Yes. Do we ignore when people are doing something wrong because it's just because it's your buddy? Oh, well, I would have said something about it, but Bob would get in trouble and I really like Bob. So I'm going to just ignore that and pretend that it's not happening. That was, like, infuriating to me.

Lilin: Yeah. So, you know, to those people who were left in the lurch and stuck in chaos and wondering what was actually happening, I'm sorry. I truly am. I wish that, you know, I could have just told everybody, but there's there's things that have to be done out of responsibility and respect. And you try to go through the right channels and you try to do the best you can to show people what's going on in the hopes that they'll actually take accountability and they'll take account and they'll look at things and understand why and maybe even express some remorse. Or some- some kind of acknowledgement that there was necessity for these moves. And, and- that didn't happen. And I was really- there were a few people. I won't say no one, but I was also sad because people did reach out and of those people, they shared with me similar stories of having been involved in these situations and feeling completely helpless and pushed out and others, you know, that were involved in these very distasteful screenshots that I shared. They were just openly talking about people, individuals, and disparaging them for no good reason other than their own amusement. And that was just very...

Tommy: Or that they disagreed with them, you know, because if they didn't agree that EM was the big, bad wolf and this, you know, you know, I don't know, or this group of dictators...

Doug bemoans a lack of respect for "the dignity of the religion"

[50:36]

Doug [interrupting]: Ministers, too! Imagine we saw a group of Catholic ministers acting like this online. We'd be dragging them for years, you know. [Tommy laughs] People would have screen shots of them and they would say that's indicative of this foul culture of theirs. And nobody, nobody has any sense of respect for the dignity of the religion itself when they're going around with the title of Minister in their ministerial capacity as far as people are concerned online. And they're talking this way. And to see people comparing that to some of my brash behavior that's directed, I think, in a focused way towards our known opposition. I think they've completely lost the plot then. It's- you know, it's not simply a qualitative analysis. It's, you know, it's a matter of where you're taking aim and what you're doing it for. And if you really don't have that sense either, I don't think it's our job to teach you. It's not prepared for this kind of work. And I think ministerial work should be taken seriously.

Tommy: Absolutely.

[51:43]

Doug: Ministers should be able to be there as a trusted source for people, as a neutral source that people can come to even maybe with topics they're uncomfortable with and feel like they're not going to immediately be judged. And we're not seeing that kind of behavior that would inspire that kind of confidence from anybody. And it doesn't do any of us any good. And it makes a joke of it all. And we don't want to, we don't want to degenerate into that just because we're trying to preserve the feelings of somebody who's trying to destroy us.

[52:15]

Tommy: Yeah. I mean, I did a post on it shortly after it. When it was blowing up on Twitter, this was before the whole, the room thing happened, you know, and Lilin can have the screenshots. This was while it was still on Twitter talking about the memes. And you know, I did a whole tweet on it was basically the same thing. If you are that unhappy, if you feel like you're entitled to a party with everything else going on, if that's your biggest bitch is that we didn't get a party, go, you know, I mean, again, you you don't have to be part of TST to be a Satanist, you could be a Satanist all by yourself, you know, and you can have your own rules and you can talk bad about whoever you want. But you know, you don't get the benefits of the organization if you're going to disparage the organization, especially in a leadership role. To me, it's just unta- it's distasteful.

Lilin: I'm like, how do you not take yourself serious enough to recognize what it is that you've chosen to willingly do and represent? And how do you just care so little for the reputation of that which you- you purport to care so much about?

[53:21]

Doug: Well, and the rot seems so severe too, when, like I said, there's such a failure to take ownership of any wrongdoing. And then the narrative is is changed by convenience to the point where now we do have the unfortunate situation where I do feel forced to talk to the- about this to a certain degree, because people are wondering, why were people locked out of their access? Well, they know fucking well, why; they just decided not to tell you.

Tommy: Yep.

Doug suggests all removed Ministers "were never qualified for the job to begin with"

[53:48]

Doug: Like, the massive downloads of the documents were real. People feel entitled to steal from us. And that shows to me that they were never qualified for the job to begin with, no matter what disagreements you have, taking that kind of proprietary information? Like, nobody can, nobody can take an organization seriously if they don't protect that. Who would want anything to do with it if we're not going to protect your information, while protecting ours? That's just what an organization is obligated to do. And for people to feel entitled to start downloading every document they have access to, for whatever reason, to do their own thing or whatever else it was that they were looking for. And we see openly, screenshots of chats where people are talking about migrating proprietary material into, into offsite servers or whatever, to keep it for their own. That to me is disgraceful. And then to pretend that they don't know why things aren't happening when they fully well do or why, what started this when they know that as well. And they develop a narrative about, you know, whatever it is they're saying about, you know, I just got a wild hare up my ass and decided to start firing people just to prove I'm- prove I'm the man or something like that.

[55:04]

Tommy: Well, yeah, that's the reason why Lilin went public with, with everything that happened was because all of these people that were in there playing victim, you know, [mocking voice] "oh, I got, I got removed". "I don't know what- they're just going crazy". "They don't know- they're- they're paranoid". "They don't know what they're doing". They're- you know, "you might be next", you know, all of that sort of shit. They knew damn well why they got removed. And every- again, I kind of went back to- look, everybody says they want transparency until that transparency shines a bad light on you or your buddy. Then all of a sudden you don't like transparency anymore, you know. But I think it was the right thing to do to show the reason why because if they, it's very possible, I can't speak for you, Lilin, but it would be very possible if these people weren't in there playing victim and stirring up more trouble that way, maybe you wouldn't have shared the whole story. You know, because it was resolving itself through EM and through the people directly and maybe they were taking responsibility for it or they were just quietly going. But the fact that they were in there playing victim and they were trying to stir up more trouble, they were trying to get more people to leave, you know, again, if I was at a job and I got caught stealing something and I was released and and I went and sat back down on my desk to clean it out. But while I was at my desk cleaning it out, I'm there telling all the other people, "oh, I don't know what the hell happened. They just went nuts, you could be next." I mean, they'd have security walk me out the fucking door. They, they'd be like, "no, you can't do that".

Doug complains about being abused, and that his abusers "play victim"

[56:43]

Doug: Well, they, they abuse you further and further until they finally reach the point where you need to engage in self-defense [Tommy: Yes!] and then they immediately play victim.

[Lilin: Mm-hmm.]

Tommy: Yep, yep, yep.

Lilin: I do truly hope that this gives people that that lauded transparency that apparently was missing, because I think that, you know, the best thing we could do is shine the light on things and as we have often brought up the invocation: "That, which can be destroyed by truth, should never be spared it's demise".

Tommy: Exactly

Lilin: And so here you are, you guys have the truth.

Doug "ends on a positive note" by claiming all vacant posts will be filled and that everyone else "can stay or they can leave"

[57:18]

Doug: Well, I would, I would like to end on a positive note and let it be known that we do have plenty of people willing to take whatever role in people who are very competent and we're open to getting messages from other people who are willing to help and we're going to make sure that every functional role, every administrative role, every- every role that's necessary to keep things running smoothly and-, uh- and timely and keep things operational and on schedule. All those posts are going to be filled and everybody else, they can stay or they can leave. And we'll be fine. You know, the, you know, the, you know- the Satanic Temple is going to go on. We're going to do all the things we do. Whether we're doing it with completely different people or not is up to a lot of people.

Tommy: Yeah.

Doug: And I think we're also going to be doing it with a lot of new people too. But we are going to have a different internal culture and it's going to be one that is more respectful and more productive.

Tommy: I hope so. I really do because, you know, it is the one thing...

Doug promises "a new internal culture"

[58:24]

Doug [interrupting]: I guarantee it. Yeah. That is my promise to everybody. Like my promise is: we are going to have a new internal culture and it's going to be one that really is more accommodating and not going to degenerate into this petty bullying. And they- it's just kind of an insular group that's bureaucratized its meetings.

Tommy: Yeah. Because I know there's, there's many, many times that it was, it always seemed like it was the SOC versus EM. You know, and it's like, why, why is there this internal, why, why are we verse each other? We're supposed to be on the same team. We're- we're supposed to be fighting the same shit out there. Um, you know, it's the same thing I complain about with other, you know, other different, whether they're Satanists or pagans or any of that. We're all fighting against the same shit. You know, there's no need for us to be fighting against each other because when they say they want to take Satanists out, they don't just mean TST. They mean you too. And they mean you too. And they mean you and you and you and you and you and you. So they mean all of us, you know, we all need to be fighting against, you know, this, this, theocracy that they are trying really hard and have a fucking chance of putting in, in November. [Lilin: Yep.] You know, I mean, that is the biggest threat.

Lilin: Oh, and that's just one small hurdle, right? November is one aspect, but this is an ongoing thing. So even then we can't just put our guard down and pretend that the threat is passed. [Tommy: Oh no]. So we have a lot of work to do. And there are a lot of wonderful people all throughout this community that I know are ready and willing to do it. So this is the time. If you're listening and you're ready, we're ready to hear you. And this is when we get to change things and really instill something that we can be proud of, all of us.

Tommy: Yeah, exactly.

Doug claims, "for those who think they're going to hold their departure over our heads [...] I'm not bluffing"

[1:00:10]

Doug: And one last thing, if you are somebody who's messaged within the past few days in the past week here and you've expressed support and your willingness to volunteer and you haven't been gotten back to yet, that's because we have gotten so many of those messages. But we will, we are keeping this on file and we will try to get back to you. And for those who think that they're going to hold their departure over our heads, just think about what I just said and the emails that I'm getting, I guarantee you I'm not- I'm not bluffing. They're there. There's a whole army of people here, it seems- willing to support us and they have felt pushed away by a small crowd of people who have been acting very irresponsibly and that's just not going to happen anymore.

Tommy: Yeah.

Lilin: Well, I think on that note...

Tommy: [laughs]...on that note, I think we can, we can adjourn the podcast and yeah, again, any questions that people have; comments, you know, letters of support. Fuck, send us letters of hate if you want to, you know, but let us know what your feelings are, what your thoughts are-

Lilin: And Lucien, is there anywhere specific people should be reaching out if they want to be involved, if they want to reach out to help?

Doug: You know what, let me determine what the best address is for that and you can put it in the, uh, in the description.

Lilin: All right. Well, you know to look for it when you get to the end of this, go ahead and take a look and we look forward to all the wonderful people that are ready and willing to help fight back against the insanity that we're all up against.

Tommy: Thank you for your time today Lucien.

Doug: Great, thank you so much.

Lilin: Hail Satan.

Tommy: Hail Satan.

Doug: Hail Satan, good n-[cut-off by music]