Podcasts/DTFH-LucienGreaves
Jul 18, 2016
Duncan Trussel Family Hour: Lucien Greaves
Lucien Greaves from the Satanic Temple joins the DTFH to talk about Satan and the many good things the SATANIC TEMPLE is up to these days.
https://www.duncantrussell.com/episodes/2016/7/18/lucien-greaves
Transcript
00:00:00 [Intro]
00:14:28 Duncan Trussel: Okay, today's guest is Lucian grieves and as an introduction I'm going to play a sound clip from a YouTube clip put together by the Satanic Temple of which he is a member. This is a montage of all the press and feedback. The Satanic Temple got for a recent campaign in which they are going to erect a statue of baffle met next to the 10 commandments at the Oklahoma City's Capitol grounds. I'll have video this clip up on the comments section at Duncan Trussell calm on this podcast. But again, just to reiterate, the Satanic Temple believes that all religions deserve to be recognized and if you get to put a Judeo Christian monument at a public building, then you should also get to put a satanic monument at a public building and they are working on that very thing. Here is the clip.
00:15:28 Unknown: While religious conservatives are making their voices heard across America, other religious groups are also trying to have their voices heard. And that includes Satanists.
00:15:37 Unknown: But in the buckle of the Bible Belt this seems maybe a little hard to believe but a satanic monument erected next to the 10 commandments.
00:15:45 Lucien Greaves: ...at the State Capitol it could happen and Satanic Temple member says the state government brought this upon itself because putting up the 10 commandments in the first place makes a religious statement.
00:15:55 Unknown: Erected just over a year ago, this 10 commandments monument stands at the north end of the state capitol. But at these steps The Satanic Temple wants what it calls "equality".
00:16:05 Unknown: The Satanist came along and said hey, we'll have you get your king commandments. statue or monument, We get our satanist monument.
00:16:14 Lucien Greaves: You kidding me now? Are we making a mockery of everything with regard to Christianity in this society? Now we're gonna have a satanic monument next to the 10 commandments really?
00:16:25 Unknown: I think unfortunately for civil libertarians, this type of sort of activist move by Satanists is gonna be a lot more effective than all the legal jawboning over the First Amendment you could possibly...
00:16:35 Unknown: ...speak to the Satanic Temple of New York. Let me speak to you directly. You're making a big mistake.
00:16:42 Lucien Greaves: We don't see a way that the state can deny other religions whether it's Satanism, whether it's Judaism, Islam, Catholicism, Hindu, Buddhist, whatever. We don't think the state can pick and choose.
00:16:54 Unknown: I agree with the rabbi do not that this is absolutely a mockery and ridiculous
00:16:58 Unknown: Absolutely not mockery, not ridiculous. It's the separation of church and state is that makes America great religious freedom means the government doesn't take sides, one religion or another. You may not like Satanists, guess what, that doesn't matter.
00:17:10 Unknown: So it's sort of a variation on if the state is going to allow the Christians to have you know, if we're going to bust the the wall of separation between church and state, then let's let multiple religions in including the folks who are the satanists.
00:17:26 Unknown: You don't want to dare set your little item God next to the word of God.
00:17:31 Unknown: All right, why, why can't Satanists do it?
00:17:33 Unknown: By the word religion in the First Amendment? The founders meant Christianity.
00:17:38 Unknown: Let's be absolutely emphatic. This is ridiculous. It's not just a mockery, it actually means America.
00:17:44 Unknown: Last crowd, the tribe that was in the temple of Dagon...
00:17:48 Unknown: The founders were thinking of Christianity. So the purpose was to protect the free exercise of the Christian faith, it wasn't about protecting anything else.
00:17:56 Lucien Greaves: I don't mind if it sits alongside the 10 Commandments monument, it sends a strong direct message. That message is one more in line with our American values of inclusiveness and equality in the eyes of the law,
00:18:09 Unknown: They themselves started growing cancerous tumors on their genitals. Seven months, they good as dead... I promise you if you go down to Oklahoma, put a statue of the devil next to the word of God, you don't want...
00:18:27 Lucien Greaves: They went to the craziest group they could find, no offense.
00:18:31 Unknown: I want to shift gears a little bit and I want to talk about fan o'clock.
00:18:37 Duncan Trussel: Most recently, the Satanic Temple has taken on the Hobby Lobby ruling. You can find out more about all of their campaigns by going to thesatanictemple.com/campaigns or just by going to thesatanictemple.com. You can donate, sign up for a Satanic Temple membership card or just check out what's going on over there. If you find Lucian, Grieves, interesting and compelling, which I certainly do, and a big thanks to Matt Dwyer from the podcast conversations with Matt Dwyer for connecting me with Lucian Grieves. Now, everybody, please send out all the love and sweet energy that you can upon the dewy brow of this darling satanist, Lucian Grieves. Everybody please welcome to the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast, Lucian Grieves.
00:20:02 Unknown: [interlude]
00:20:02 Duncan Trussel: Lucian grieves from the Satanic Temple. Thank you so much for coming to the Duggar Trussell Family Hour podcast.
00:20:08 Lucien Greaves: Good to be here. Thank you.
00:20:09 Duncan Trussel: Awesome. So, yeah, man, I've been really looking forward to this interview. But prior to it, as I was considering interviewing you, I had some serious trepidation. Just because so much horribleness is attached to the term Satanism. But then as I've been watching your interviews, and looking at all the great stuff that you're doing out there, I can't I can't find anything really that sinister at all about what you're doing. In fact, all of it seems like you are an act, a humanist and an activist who really wants the world to be a better place. And that is quite a paradox. Because you're, you're doing it under the label of Satanism, which a lot of people are terrified of that word and everything associated with it.
00:21:04 Lucien Greaves: Well, yeah, and but look at the inversion of values, if we look at what what type of values are reflected now in the, in what we know, is the conservative Christian movement and its exclusionary attitude towards homosexuals and others it maligns so often, you know, of course, there's there's just going to be different groups who say that's not a reflection of Christianity at all. But that's kind of the mainstream voice of what's called Christianity at this point in Satanism has always been rather a kind of Specter. Imaginary outgroup created by by the dominant Judeo Christian culture. And so when you take on that label, you do have to kind of define it on your own terms. There were there were this kind of legend about the Jews, defaming the the consecrated host murdering babies and that kind of thing. They were almost like the original Satanists, you know, right. If you go back earlier, the pagans actually demonized Christians in a similar way. And then, and then so on down the line until you you have this kind of mythology about about Satanist. But one of the books we use is the metaphorical construct, for our archetype of Satanism is revolt of the angels by Anatoly France. And it's this very kind of clever book, where Satan decides to revive the war on heaven, or at least this group of angels seeks him out to revive the war on heaven. In the end of the story, he kind of contemplates this, and he dreams that his army marches against Jehovah, and they win back the heavens. And then throughout time he becomes complacent and sick with the power again, becomes a tyrannical force exactly as Jehovah was. And so the whole process continues. And he doesn't actually want that position. He doesn't take up the war and having again, so there's kind of a, a duty to the, to the marginalized, out group to stand up for their own in that kind of way, in a positive way.
00:23:15 Duncan Trussel: And so you, you you feel that Satanism, or the type of Satanism, you practice is sort of sticking up for the underdog for the people who've been pushed to the periphery of society by the kind of what Terence McKenna called the male Dominator culture, which is I think it's a pretty good term for it.
00:23:39 Lucien Greaves: Yeah, well, one thing I don't want to do is pretend that we have this kind of ancient tradition, we're going off of you here. You know, from from these Wiccans who hearken to this ancient tradition, which was arguably actually created in the 20th century, by, by scholars who were etched on to this idea that there were these Dianic fertility called set were maligned and that sort of thing. And, you know, that's not necessarily true, nor does it have to be. But with Satanism, you know, there's just a lot of mythology, and it's been this kind of imagery and symbology called together from this history of building outcasts making out groups, and these violent, ugly purge purges against people we deemed witches or Satanists and that kind of thing. So it really is our duty to recognize that and urge against it and force people to confront those kinds of fears and judge people for their real actions, their concrete actions in the real world, rather than based on these mythological fears.
00:24:47 Duncan Trussel: Right, because right now there's no satanist dropping bombs on kids on beaches.
00:24:52 Lucien Greaves: Right exactly. And there's no you know, satanic jihad or holy wars of any other type. You know, we're we're calling for people Well, they actually look and reconcile themselves with these elements, they fear about other religions. And nothing does that better than confronting them face first with the idea of Satanism.
00:25:11 Duncan Trussel: And that is what you are a genius at that what you're doing is, has this incredible, his perfect balance of activism and comedy in it. It is so hilarious and so simple. What inst? Can you talk a little bit about the, for those of you out there who don't know about this fantastic monument that you're building right now?
00:25:41 Lucien Greaves: Yeah, well, the monument idea was kind of a monument we had early on, when we were first, forming the Satanic Temple idea that was kind of something in the background, where, you know, we keep seeing these agendas being pushed through and they're being pushed through and in, in the name of the religious agenda. And that kind of thing is though, there's only one religious voice in the United States, or, you know, so far there really has been one asserting itself. But, you know, these, these religious, these religious based laws or bills that are passed or whatever, they are necessarily constitutionally going to be open to any religion there is. So when you get a case, like a 10 commandments monument going up on public property, oftentimes you have people who they feel Religious freedom is being upheld, that you know, that they, they, they cheer, and they say that this is a this is a proper message for, for this Christian nation, that kind of thing. And then you get secular groups and they, they get pissed off and they say they want this the monument taken down, there should be no religious monuments on public land, given the separation of church and state, how they interpret the First Amendment that they feel it shouldn't stand. What really hasn't happened is that another group comes along and says, Okay, if you're going to have the 10 commandments monument there, you've opened the door that any other religious group can have it there too, and they asked to have theirs put there, when that's exactly what we've done. And we said, okay, in Oklahoma, at the state capitol, they have put a 10 commandments monument up. And their justification for that was a set it was privately donated by a state legislator named Mike Ritz, who happens to be a Baptist minister as well. And they said that being that was privately donated and not an item paid for by the states or otherwise adopted by the state. It bypasses the Establishment Clause not being a church and state issue, because they said that lent that territory of land where they allow the 10 commandments monument was open to be a Monument Park, and they envisioned future monuments being there as soon as we privately privately donate it as well. So it was a perfect territory for us to say, well, that's perfect. We'd like to put a satanic monument there. And what was interesting to me, is the response because I knew this would get press but I didn't realize it would get pressed so immediately, because when we first got press for this, the first round of press, which was really huge, only came as a result of us sending a letter to the, to the Preservation Commission, which approves monuments or whatever else in Oklahoma, and stating our intention to donate a monument to the, to the Capitol, on the same principle as the 10 commandments monument was donated. The Press got ahold of that and the response was huge. And people immediately started reaching out to us and saying they wanted to donate to the monument. And at that point, we hadn't even designed the monument. We just wanted to find out the process. You know, we wrote the letter said we want to donate our monument. So we had done a cost analysis or anything. So we thought well, we'll start an Indiegogo campaign and put it up immediately because you know, things like this in the press tend to peak and fall really fast. So while people were writing to us saying they wanted to donate, we knew we would need that money. So we put up an Indiegogo and set the donation that 20 grand the donation limit, you don't want to not reach your goal at Indiegogo or they take a higher percentage away from you is how it works. And we thought that 20 grand was kind of lofty goal but in that that's about what the 10 commandments monument costs but we figured ours was probably going to be a bit more elaborate but we couldn't count on more than 20 grand so we made about eight grand before that media cooled down in then donations died in that was about Christmas. And there's a finite time you have to connect collect your your donations before before they show On your campaign on Indiegogo. So donations died. So we knew we needed to revive it. So we worked during Christmas break and came up with a design. And so it was going to be a traditional image of bafflement and baffle mats this androgynous goat headed creature. Tradition traditionally has breasts, but we ultimately made the executive decision to take those off.
00:30:25 Duncan Trussel: Why?
00:30:25 Lucien Greaves: Just be... just because we don't want to argue with Oklahoma on the grounds of pornography, we don't want to give them that that ammunition to say that it has nothing to do with one thing or the other, but that they're going to deny it on the grounds that there's breasts.
00:30:44 Duncan Trussel: You can put a goat statue up fine, but you're not putting tits on the goat, satanists.
00:30:50 Lucien Greaves: Right, right. Well, it is. It is ridiculous. Admittedly, it is ridiculous. But I feel like we would just be handing them something and I have no doubt that they would hammer on that, in that would be the grounds on which they would turn it down. And we'd have to fight a whole different battle than the one that that we think deserves recognition.
00:31:11 Duncan Trussel: Maybe a tasteful bra?
00:31:14 Lucien Greaves: We worked with different things with the artists, I was very much an advocate during the construction of this for putting breasts on in some way, you know, I...
00:31:26 Duncan Trussel: Yeah, because the symbol is kind of the Yin Yang, it is your isn't isn't for, you know, that issue that I took, when I initially heard about this is with using baphomet as the symbol for Satan as I thought to myself, well, that's not Satan at all. That's this beautiful symbol of the merging of the masculine and the feminine, that kind of magical union, I'd always thought of it what not always, when you see it, at first, it seems kind of scary, but when you consider what it means it's a it's, I've always thought of it as representing balance or some kind of new balance being achieved in the world. But so I thought, wow, that...
00:32:05 Lucien Greaves: It still does, it still does, and I hope people keep their perception of that. But in in modern times, it has been sufficiently Satan eyes that it is recognized as a symbol of Satanism. And if you look at different different religions, this is this is common, you know, this is common that different, different past constructs get co opted in, in St. NYSED. Or, or merged in with their religion in other ways. I mean, look at all the pagan elements in Christianity, look at even Christian, Christmas, or Easter or whatever else. And it's kind of pointless to say, like, well, the, the Christmas tree isn't Christmas at all. It's pagan. Well, it's true and but also it is now part of the Christian tradition in plus, you know, what, what is going to be an accurate representation of Satan, a lot of them previously are going to be things we wouldn't want to touch, they're, they're either going to be too obscure to be recognized, like, we're not going to use a, a dragon of the type that looks more like a symbol for Chinese New Year or whatever, we want it to be, obviously, a satanic symbol, right? And it's not going to be something offensive, like, like a, a black a, than the Negro, Satan, you know, as it were, or the, or the Jewish Satan with horns, right, kind of like a pan type character, or whatever. I love this symbol of the reconciliation of opposites and the balance, and it still has all these binary elements. And plus, putting it alongside the 10 commandments adds to that as well. And then the message becomes one of that kind of balance, right? And it's it really, it really, it's really kind of ironic that there's all these threats against destroying it when when that really ultimately is the message there.
00:33:56 Duncan Trussel: Right? And well, people don't understand that people see that symbol, and they freak out. And they think that it is exactly what you're saying. They just think that it's some some kind of just awful thing. So and then when I realized you know, after I realized like, oh shit, that's a symbol of balance. And then just like what you're saying, here is this thing balancing out the 10 commandments or the sort of the way that Christianity is managed to or popular Christianity which probably isn't Christianity all is managed to become what we call the mainstream religion here is something that balances that out and and all that it seems wonderful and then with the addition of the two children standing next to the to the to the tobacco Matt, it's hilarious, but do you you do recognize how funny Do you see this as funny? Is that Is it Is it offensive that I see this as a kind of comedic Art, kind of like amazing conceptual bit of comedy that you're doing?
00:35:05 Lucien Greaves: No, I love it that people see it that way I but I also don't want it to be obscured to the point where people feel that there's nothing genuine about it or that this kind of symbolic system doesn't actually resonate mean something to us, because it does. And even recognizing Satanism as being this rather modern religion where these different symbols are called from this mythology in the background, it still can't help but have deep meaning to us, when we grow up in this kind of culture, where it's been. You know, it's it's inextricable from our culture. It's something that's in the background, like you can't get away from certain conceptions, when you look at religious Christians imagery as well, you whether you're an atheist, or whatever else, when you grow up in this culture, and with Satanism, it's quite the same. And I think, you know, even though I, I fully admit and embrace that I'm an atheist, and I don't really, you know, and I don't subscribe to any supernaturalism, about this, that I feel we have all the elements of a legitimate religion, that what a religion should be a sense of community, a shared sense of goals, a sense of identity, and, you know, in a kind of practice, background, that kind of thing. So I don't want people to look and say, Well, this is, this is a genius prank. That's, it's fine that they think that so long as it doesn't marginalize it to the point where people think that there's nothing authentic in what we're doing, or that it's all on a lark, and that there hasn't been a lot of blood, sweat and tears going into this, because there certainly has this has not been, despite what it might look like, this has not been an easy year for those of us, those few of us in the inner circle here who are actually doing this thing. And it's really quite harrowing. And it's been a complete upheaval in my life. So I want to keep that humor element. And I'm glad people are very much amused, but I don't want to marginalize it just the same.
00:37:18 Duncan Trussel: I see. And can you talk a little bit about some of the harrowing moments that have happened, as you've found yourself catapulted into the public eye?
00:37:31 Lucien Greaves: Well, as you know, my name is Doug. But I started out with this, you know, putting forward the name Lucian Greaves, which I still use in connection with this. But, and I kind of, I really didn't know how big this would get. And I kind of thought maybe I could just be a voice for the organization, and have this name, you know, the pseudonym out out in the front, and which was fine by me, because I, I've never really been interested in developing myself as a character, you know, turning this into the story of my autobiographical self, even though I'm revealed for who I am, I just don't engage in that with journalists and that kind of thing. But it doesn't. You know, it's, you get into the situation where you start talking to journalists, and the first thing is they dive at Where did you go to school? Where did you grow up? Where do you work and those kinds of things, right? I think, are you fucking crazy? Why are you asking me that, especially in the position I'm in. And then when this gets really big, of course, I have Ann Coulter tweeting about me saying that, you know, tweeting my name and saying that this is all just a plot for me to run away from a Jewish name. I'm not Jewish to begin with, anyway, but I don't know what, what her whole point is. But I feel like it's almost it almost has the tone of a threat to me when these people say, you know, come off like, Well, we found out who you are, and we're going to tell people and that's the kind of attitude I got from like Laura Ingraham and in like I said, Ann Coulter and these different Fox News assholes who interview me into the point where on Fox News, even Imus has a show. I didn't I didn't even know that old bastard had a show but he has a show on Fox and one of his his sidekicks that guess who does his panel discussions with him all the time actually called for us to be murdered? He said we should be lined up next to our monument and shot.
00:39:28 Duncan Trussel: Wow.
00:39:28 Lucien Greaves: So yeah, so you know that that really did distress me and I haven't pushed for media coverage for things we're doing, like actively reaching out to people and in most cases, we just put out a press release or whatever, and it rolls on its own momentum or it doesn't. This was something where immediately I contacted our lawyer he wrote a letter to Fox and at first they were very dismissive, you know, they were real pricks about it. And then and then I was reaching out directly with with media. I felt I had good reasons. ship with really pushing them to cover this story because I really wanted, I really wanted this to be recognized, I didn't want somebody to get away with calling us to be murdered, calling for us to be murdered, right? Because, you know, I am deeply concerned about that. And it got to the point where Ross story ran a story, they they've always been really good to us. They ran a story, calling it some type of outrage. And then the Young Turks, they do this kind of video new show, I don't know if it's only on YouTube, or where but you know, they've been good, too. And they were openly saying that this guy should be fired from Fox and all that. So before it was going to get any deeper, I think Fox realized that this was this was going to gain momentum. They had, they had that guy err and apology. But Fox themselves never took the opportunity to say that as a network, they don't condone that kind of violence, or that kind of speech or anything, you know, they just sent us a letter that essentially said, we wash our hands of it now go, you know, piss off or whatever. But so there was that. And plus, you know, there's, there's always the threats now. And I feel like it's only going to get worse, because, you know, within the next couple of days here, we're going to be rolling out a campaign that's going to leverage the Hobby Lobby ruling. And we've found that it looks like we'll be able to use that in defense of, of pro choice initiatives.
00:41:28 Duncan Trussel: Can you tell me what's planned? What's up your what's going on with that? What do you have planned for the Hobby Lobby?
00:41:35 Lucien Greaves: Well, since Roe vs. Wade hasn't, nobody's managed to overturn it. And that, you know, essentially as legalized abortion back in 73, I believe it was, the supreme court hearing. But since then, there's been all these what I call weasel bills introduced to try to make abortion more difficult for for women to get whether it's informed consent laws, as they call them, were this their state mandated medical information, they call it to give to the woman which most of it's not scientifically valid, or medically legitimate in any way. Like they have information saying that abortion increases risks towards breast cancer, which is not proven, it's very, very dubious, spurious data, you know, show them pictures of fetuses and that kind of thing. It's just, it's really trying to scare people out of what's already a difficult situation, right. And our feeling is that fundamentally, you know, your choice is your own, and you should be, and your choices should be made with the best available material scientific evidence, and this doesn't qualify. And our stance there was, you know, it's similar to our children's campaign, I don't know if you saw where we had a letter of exemption written up saying for kids where they didn't have to be subjected to corporal punishment, yes. And we have a letter drawn up. And we had lawyers vet it and everything. So we have this letter drawn up that people will be able to download from our website, and women can bring it to their care provider and have them sign it. And essentially, it says that, you know, given our beliefs, we're not subject to this state mandated information. Because we believe in actual scientific information, that kind of thing. We thought part of the problem we might run into with that is that, even though a lot of this legislative material is, is openly, not not scientifically legitimate, or at least a part of a minority belief within medicine or science, that we might get dragged through the courts, with the state, hiring a medical witness saying, "Well, you know, it's legitimate to us. So the state is allowed to legislate in favor of a of a pro life position." And that's, that's true. That's, that's where it's fallen. But given the Hobby Lobby decision, where they've decided that due to the deeply held beliefs of this corporation, that they they can choose to believe that contraceptives are a board of fashions when they're when they are in fact not. We don't have to argue the medical legitimacy of this nation. We can simply say, we don't fucking like it. So we don't want it. And we feel like now given Hobby Lobby, that's a home run. So that's the first bit of this the first weasel bill we're going to take on with abortion. And there's three more after that...
00:44:51 Duncan Trussel: Can you can you sum up what you just said? I kind of got a little lost in it. It's a letter that people who work for places like the Hobby Lobby We can bring to their medical provider that... can you explain that? Can you simplify that a little bit? Because I'm a dummy.
00:45:07 Lucien Greaves: Yeah, well, on this particular on this on this first initiative, and it may seem a small step, but it's all going to come together and different initiatives where it's an all out protection of, of a pro choice position. But with this particular one, we're taking on this idea that women need to be subjected to state mandated information, that women need to be subjected to images of fetuses and information, telling them that abortion will kill them, or cause them to commit suicide or whatever else. We think that's needlessly stressful. So in essence, what we're doing is we're giving them a letter of exemption. And if a doctor says I need to give you this information, I need to ensure that you, you go through the trauma of seeing this right, and all the rest. They can they're then subject to being sued on the grounds that they violated our religious liberty.
00:46:04 Duncan Trussel: Wow. Okay, cool. Right. That is really smart. Man. That is very, very smart. Wow. Wow, that's so cool. I, I, this Hobby Lobby ruling is so ridiculous. I read in her dissent. It was amazing how she's pointing out like, "Well, now, you know, Scientologists, if you work for Scientologists, they can say that you don't you can't get antidepressants. Or if you work for an Islamic company, then they can say that you can't get anything that has any kind of pig product in it. If they want to." It's a can of worms, man. It's a can of worms.
00:46:46 Lucien Greaves: Yeah, well, that's just another case where obviously they weren't in thinking of other religious groups, which was actually surprising to me, because earlier on so some couple months ago, there was a case in Greece, New York, and the town of Greece in New York, and it went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court saw in favor of the town of Greece. And what was going on there is that they were having these public town meetings being opened up by these Christian convocations, they would have like, a minister come in, and he would do a Christian prayer or whatever. And somebody was pissed off, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said, No, you know, you can do a public prayer opening up a town meeting. But the idea, of course, is that it should be open to anybody. And then the LA Times reached out to me and they said, Well, is there a satanic prayer we could do? And I wrote one up for them, and they published it. News. Nice, but But it was interesting in the Supreme Court case, Scalia did mention Satanists he mentioned like, Well, what about Satanist? Can't they can't they give camp a opened up the town hall meeting with a prayer? You know that that question did come up. So I find it kind of surprising that they don't think of it in a broader context of something like Hobby Lobby where like you say it's, it's far more of a disaster and of course, Scientology now they, they it would be well within their rights to say they cut psychiatry out for many of any of theirs because they they have a long standing history of being anti psychiatry. Oh, yeah. When When do you start picking and choosing what you actually it's like picking and choosing what you're paying taxes for? Like saying, Oh, no, I don't have kids who go to school. Why? You know, I'm gonna pay this percentage less or whatever.
00:48:41 Duncan Trussel: I don't want to pay for drones, dropping bombs on people. I don't want to pay for I don't want any of my money to go to those bombs. This is to me, it just when I think of Satanism, I don't think of what you're doing. When I think of Satanism. I think of something sinister. When I when I think of the symbol of Satan, I think of something sinister. And I don't think a bathroom that I think of whatever warp exists in the universe. There are a fraction in the lens of the time space continuum that pushes people away from truth. That's what I think of when I think of Satanism. I don't think of what what you're doing reminds me of Christianity. What you're doing makes me think of what an activist Christian would be doing out in the world. It seems like a very positive, beautiful thing I get I get so freaked out when I hear about your death threats that you're getting, because it makes me...
00:49:48 Lucien Greaves: I would argue that it has to be Satanism. You know that it has to be Satanism and it couldn't be anything else. Because anytime you have something that's going to go against the status quo like this, that's going to be the propaganda about it, you know, If you're going against the power as it were the mainstream structure you're always going to be demonized in this way and an outcast you don't look at the the Satan of that kind of propaganda look at the idea of Satan is put forward by Milton and revolt of the you know in Paradise Lost or Anatole France is revolt of the angels where you have this kind of eternal rebel against the tyrannical power.
00:50:26 Duncan Trussel: But this is, that's what Jesus is when I think of when I look at when I read the New Testament when it says, and I'm sure you have, when I read that I still remember the first time I read it when I was on acid and reading about this, you know, getting to look at it from the perspective of having none of the indoctrination of being raised a Christian just reading it from the perspective of what it what it what what Christ was doing. And it seems like he was this rebellious being that was fighting against the religion of the day, and ended up getting murdered for it. So that's why what you I love that. If you're a Satanist, then I guess I'm one too. But I would just wouldn't use that word for it. That's all you know. And I maybe it's a useful tool, because it allows you to fly in the face of these people who call it I wouldn't call what these people are doing Christianity, scat scaly or whatever his name is, I wouldn't call him a Christian. Maybe that's why...
00:51:38 Lucien Greaves: Oh, yeah, but But you know, the thing is, is like, I like your confusion. I like that you're confused. And I like that a lot of people are confused. And I actually think that that's progress for for you and for people, other people who are confused. I, I know it, it's painful for some people and they a lot of people come to me like this and they say I just can't get behind calling it Satanism. In, I actually think we kind of thrive on that. Because we know we're forcing people to it's shaking them up, it's forcing them to reevaluate things and it from here on, if somebody defines themselves as a Satanist, you're going to be forced to think twice about what that might mean, what that might or might not mean. And of course, you know, you're gonna find rotten people who self identify as Satanists to find rotten people who self identify as Christians, you'll find good and both and bad. But I do find there to be some truth in the left hand path, right hand path distinction that's made between the Judeo Christian culture and, and Satanism, in the right hand path is more people seeking wholeness with the one, you know, kind of assimilating into this kind of mass consciousness or whatever else, there's nothing wrong with that there's this drive towards it. At its worst, though, you're talking kind of mindless conformity. Lefthand path is kind of the opposite people developing their pure self as an isolated intelligence. That too, is is a noble goal, right? Sure. That it but at its worst, you know, you could have this kind of anti social, anti human behavior, they can go that way too. So they both got their good and bad. And you know, people go one way or they, they go the other. And it's funny, because there's a book called lords of the left hand path, where it actually, at one point asks a question about whether or not Jesus Christ might have been a Lord of the lefthand path, which seems really paradoxical by that point. But you know, it's kind of what you're touching on now.
00:53:47 Duncan Trussel: Well I mean, I, I definitely think that and I think that that's one of the and that's why you start getting into this real confusion when you start going down this particular path, because you know, what you have happening right now. I if you if you follow the news today, Israel drops bombs on a beach and kills four kids. Have you heard about that? Did you hear about that?
00:54:15 Lucien Greaves: Yeah. Yeah, you know, I've heard of, you know, the Palestinians murdered some kid and Israeli, Israelis went back and yeah...
00:54:24 Duncan Trussel: Now this is not necessarily done in the name of religion. It's done in the name of a conflict over a territorial conflict. But when you look at the religion of George W. Bush, or if you look at the religion of Barak Obama, or you look at the religion of any of the people who feel okay about dropping bombs on kids, you will find that it is always either Judaism, Islam, or Christianity, always, always those religions. The people who follow those religions somehow have managed to work into those religions. The idea that from time to time, you have to incinerate children to make things better in the world. This is the exact thing that they've accused Satanists of forever. Satan is they're gonna take your kid into the woods, set him on fire chop them in half. Meanwhile, these sons of bitches are flying jets over foreign countries incinerating babies. Now to me, that is that is Satanism. And that's where it gets really spooky to think that perhaps the true religion of the day is this kind of violence is kind of random, financially based insanity. That and what you're doing or what you're what you're actually actually doing is true Christianity, and that is why they want to kill you. Just like they wanted to kill our Lord Jesus Christ, praise God.
00:55:54 Lucien Greaves: Well, to refer back to Revolt of the Angels, that's the whole nature of the story. It's that that kind of corruption of being the ubiquitous power and becoming complacent and your your feelings of entitlement, and that leads you to this kind of tyrannical complaisance against against the lives of the of the outcast, the the other or whatever else might might threaten that power.
00:56:20 Duncan Trussel: Yes, that. That's it. That's it. And, you know, again, we all I, as you said, you're an atheist, you don't believe in some kind of, I don't know is an external disembodied evil or external disembodied rebellious force outside of the rebellious force that manifests in your heart or in your actions. But the so you're, we're just using symbols here, you know, and so that's a funny thing. This is when you get into you know, a Gnosticism a lot of the idea was that the God that most people are worshipping is an actual the what do they call that? God? Fuck, you know, a Gnosticism. What do they call the the Demiurge? Which was a kind of confused, got hat God hatchling. Do you know anything about this?
00:57:12 Lucien Greaves: Yeah, I've read Gnostic material. I've, I've been through quite a lot of comparative religion, actually. Every now and again, I'm actually invited to speak to comparative religion classes and all different types of classes, really.
00:57:28 Duncan Trussel: Yeah. Well, I can I believe it. I mean, one thing that's really that I'm learning from this conversation is that you are, this is truly your religion. I wasn't sure if you were just using it as a form of tool for social activism. But I see that this is an actual religion for you, you are, would you consider yourself a religious person?
00:57:49 Lucien Greaves: Well, yeah, actually, I would. And then I've gone through great effort to explain to people what that means, because like I said, I end up on on these Fox shows or whatever. And sometimes the entire point of what they're trying to get across is that we're not a real religion. And what I like to do is just laugh and turn it back around and say, well, then you're giving me an advantage. So if you want to say we're not actually a religion, we don't have to fight any establishment clause issues, you know, right, if you want to make that argument for us, and you can say, okay, you know, if the state adopts the 10 commandments, and then people argue that that's a religious item, well, then we don't have to make the argument that ours is, you know, what I'm saying? Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous that they go that way. But I'm saying that we can separate supernaturalism from religion in that you don't need to subscribe to a supernatural deity, to have a religion and, you know, and part of part of that is seeing kind of secular Jews, you know, you they still engage in the rituals and that kind of thing. And I've met a lot, you know, I didn't when I was growing up, but when I moved, I met a lot of Jewish people. And it was kind of new to me that see, to see that they embraced it as a cultural ancestral background, that kind of thing. And it gave them a sense of meaning and that kind of thing. And there's nothing wrong with that. And I think there's very positive things to be gained from that. I think when you start losing ground on the positive nature of it is really when you start subscribing to untenable beliefs, believing that you have to believe them to be a part of that religion. And when you start getting these dogmatic beliefs that the voice of some some deity compels your, your, your hatred towards different groups or whatever else, and that you can't assimilate or adjust to the reality of today, you know, which is far better than, than the reality of the time most of these texts were written or whatever else.
00:59:58 Duncan Trussel: Well, I mean, what what's more Finding the idea that some invisible being is like having conversations with George W. Bush who has control the nuclear arsenal. That's not, that's not the person you want to have the keys to nuclear weapons, the guy talking to an invisible homophobic lunatic thing. That's like a very dark, dark religion. Well, maybe it's just a matter of like, not getting caught up in definitions. Maybe that's the point. Because one thing that we can't escape from is the fact that even though we have manifest in this dimension as individuals, there's no way around that you're an individual. I'm an individual, George W. Bush is an individual, we're all individuals. But then simultaneously, we are connected to this gigantic thing called a universe, an inexplicable, an understandable thing. And this human tendency to say, Well, I'm a Christian, or I'm a Satanist, or I'm a Zoroastrian, or it seems to be kind of, it seems like people end up getting lost in that, you know, when there's what we really are as humans living on a planet together, you know, that's filling up with many more of us, you know...
01:01:09 Lucien Greaves: Right, right. Well, you know, I think one of the greatest evils, though, that has come out of religion in general, is the the tendency to create these out groups to create the idea of Satanists, the idea of a certain people that are the embodiment of evil, and that if we can just destroy them, everything will be okay. Right. The people who are working against the entire moral fabric of the universe in are so depraved that they'll act against every human impulse that they're that's known, and they're just a conspiracy of cruelty in the background, it just hasn't existed. And the sooner we realize that, the better off, we'll be. And I think we go a long way toward making that happen.
01:01:56 Duncan Trussel: Well, you know, I have to disagree with you there about this conspiracy of cruelty, I think there is a conspiracy of cruelty. But I think the conspiracy of cruelty isn't engineered by Satanists, especially the sect of Satanism that you're a member of, but obviously, this conspiracy of cruelty exists and whatever group of people are currently building weapons that get dropped on kids. I don't mean to keep going back to that. But when you're listing like bad things to do in the world, you know, that's, that's got to be at the top of the list, right? Like when you're talking...
01:02:31 Lucien Greaves: Yeah, yeah. You you make you make a valid point. So so let me amend that when I talk about the conspiracy that doesn't exist. I'm talking about the one that's supposed to be hidden in the background that's running parallel to our society that knows it's acting against, the better, the better impulses of our culture and everything else that's, that's working against the greater good. The real conspiracy of evil is happening in the name of the greater good by a lot of people who are very misguided into believing that they're working towards those ends, right? When doing these kinds of things. They're doing it in the name of righteousness and justice, and they're co opting these labels. They're misappropriating them, but...
01:03:20 Duncan Trussel: That's a hell of a lot creepier. That's a hell of a lot creepier than a group of people wearing robes gathered together muttering weird Lovecraftian incantations and some Grove in the forest. It's a million times creepier because it's the you know this. And you say they're misguided. But I wonder, are they misguided? Is it really just like a lips, we're just sort of confused. Or maybe these really these people have become so addicted to power, and so drunk on the whatever weird feeling you get, when you realize that you are on a daily basis, turning humans into hamburger meat with $100,000 bombs, that they're not misguided at all. They're just they're no more misguided than somebody wandering into a jerk off theater and, you know, spraying jizz all over the floor. You know that? That guy's not necessarily misguided. That guy being me. It's at one point in my life that I wasn't I wasn't misguided. I knew exactly what I was doing. You know?
01:04:32 Lucien Greaves: Right, there again, though, we're dealing with the balance of power. And you're going to find that from people who are secure in the idea that they hold the power, you know, it's really it doesn't seem like a real human characteristic that you're going to find that from the outgroup you find people who self identify as Satan is continually trying to justify themselves and show that they're not so bad after all. And then you Find people a lot of times doing things in the name of mainstream religion, and they're acting like rotten bastards because they feel they have a certain entitlement. They've already defined themselves as having the moral high ground. Yes. So they can act as immoral as they feel, is they feel as convenient.
01:05:17 Duncan Trussel: Well, that's what I got to tell you, that's got to be the grim it's like, you know, if you can eliminate, like, truly just eliminate guilt from you know, from blowing people up, like you don't just eliminate guilt, you know, you actually, like transform guilt into this kind of exhilarating, what's better than like, you know, being engaged in some modern crusade, you know, where you really are acting in the name of some higher power. I mean, God, you don't just get to experience the rush of blowing people up, you get to get that mixed in with the idea that you're some kind of Messianic Savior of the world. Wow, man, well, then we have to come up with a new name for this religion that these people are engaged in, because it's not Christianity, and I'm not going to call it Satanism because I don't want to offend you. Because whatever you're doing sounds great. So we have to come up with a new religion that they're following. They're engaged in some kind of, I don't know what you would call it. I call that God that they worship, Lun Lun, some kind of insane. Some being that over the course of eternity lost its mind and is, you know, really upset over these like microscopic monkey descendants putting their Cox in the wrong asshole. That's a crazy God. That's like a loony God. And that's what that's what they worship at you, this Satanism that you're talking about? What is the school? What is this specific? This? Is this LaVeyan Satanism? Is this? What type of Satanism? Would you call this?
01:06:53 Lucien Greaves: Well, I would call it more of a literary Satanism actually, I mean, we do draw from LaVey. But I feel like LaVey was also a product of his time. I'm all for evolving with the times and seeing where the you know, what the best available evidence is for us today. And something I was explaining in an interview I was doing on NPR, was that in LaVey's time. You know, he started in the 60s, His Church of Satan, and he died in the late 90s. And, you know, he would talk a lot of kind of police state politics, and he would, and he said that his Satanism was kind of Ayn Rand philosophy dressed up in religious trappings, right, and we can see kind of now where the Tea Party ultimately leads us with, with Ayn Rand, I don't, I don't think it's really fair to her but but with the police state politics, I think you have to keep in mind that in today's time, 60s to 90s, violence was was out of control in the United States, we it was getting worse and worse. And you kind of see it in the apocalyptic films and everything of the day, still in Cold War period, and those kinds of things. Everything, you know, these post apocalyptic futures are being seen, the idea was that everything was eventually going to get worse, and people are looking for those kinds of solutions. What do we do? You know, and it's in lovies idea was like, increased police state kind of thing. Now, since the vase died, you know, at about 95 I think it peaked. And now violence in general has just been decreasing exponentially rapidly. We're doing something right, you know, something that, you know, there are good things happening and violence has been decreasing very much. And Steven Pinker, cognitive science professor at Harvard, wrote a book better angels of our nature that kind of explores this topic of the decrease in violence. And we're at a point now where we can look at what we're we could be doing right and what we could maybe be doing more of, to stay away from this and I think a lot of the police state rhetoric now sounds a bit outdated and just wrong, you know, so I feel like we are we're different in that way. We don't really we're not his right wing. I don't think his his some of the vase rhetoric was but I don't necessarily think that he would object today. It's, uh, you know, you can't say, really, what, what would love a say today? You know, for one thing, it doesn't really matter. For another thing he might agree with us entirely, you know, I knows but I think but I think we're coming from coming from things for at a very pragmatic level and we're looking at what works best when when you're going to organize and put forward certain agendas and in collective ideals that that work well for us. And I think, you know, the way we go about it in such a way that shakes up the status quo really is better embody in the symbolism of Satanism.
01:10:02 Duncan Trussel: So... Okay, so here's what Satan is Satanists want, the satanists that you are, this is what the it was... The agenda of a Satanist these days is: one, keep kids from getting spanked in public schools. Is that correct?
01:10:17 Lucien Greaves: Well, yeah, we're gonna talk about kids getting spanked and women's rights pro-choice that those can be summed up in the idea of personal sovereignty. And that's something we advocate for on all fronts. I mean, you abdicate some of that, and, you know, if justice is going to be called against you, if you violate the personal sovereignty of another, but beyond that, we feel your personal sovereignty is inviolable, you know, your body is yours alone subject to your own will alone.
01:10:46 Duncan Trussel: So, that means, okay, your body is yours alone subject to your own will alone, that means that legalization of drugs, legalization of... you should be allowed to take any drug you want. Is that fair to say? That's a satanic ideal.
01:11:01 Lucien Greaves: Yeah, yeah. That it's your it's your choice.
01:11:04 Duncan Trussel: It's your choice, whatever you want to do. It's just what were under the influence of a certain drug. If you break laws that go against another person's personal sovereignty, then you have to face justice.
01:11:17 Lucien Greaves: Right. Right. And that's not to say we advocate taking any drug. You know, it's just to say that it's up to you, right? I don't feel there should be some central authority really legislating that your ability to do so.
01:11:33 Duncan Trussel: So okay, so it's, it seems like the roots of this religion are personal sovereignty, and autonomy, freedom of the individual to express themselves without impinging on another person's freedom. Right? Absolutely. So and So what are some other tenants of this religion outside of personal sovereignty?
01:11:56 Lucien Greaves: Well, we've written seven of them, I think we originally had nine, and we want to make them malleable, but it all comes down pretty much to the, the idea of, you know, keeping keeping within the material world, you know, keeping, keeping a rationalistic perspective of the world, around the best available evidence, and just not being under the thumb of some tyrannical power. In really, we try to keep it as broad in and in not, we're not trying to micromanage people's beliefs, per se, we're keeping to very general, general values, just because just because we don't think it's really appropriate to micromanage people's beliefs, we're gonna have people who self identify as Satan is Satanists who have a variety of beliefs. But we feel like these are certain things, you know, there's just certain core values we can agree with. And we really don't want to tighten our grip beyond those because I think then already, you're running into problems already, then you're becoming the kind of power you didn't want to be the kind of thing you were rejecting all along. And that's part of the reason when people ask, Well, why didn't you put your tenants? Why don't you have your tenants carved into the stone on the on the monument you're putting up and, you know, to me, the idea of having, you know, fiats etched in stone as though they can never be altered or changed is kind of offensive on its own. They should be, your thinking should be open to change, it should be open and available to new information.
01:13:36 Duncan Trussel: What would a satanic planet look like?
01:13:43 Lucien Greaves: Wow. Hmm, a satanic planet? You know, I think I think it would have to be like Revolt to the Angels again, like we, we would always be the minority group, it loses its meaning and it loses value and it becomes something else if you become the dominant power structure. Satanism, by its very nature, I think, always has to be the outgroup or the other.
01:14:08 Duncan Trussel: So that's an interesting thing. If so, if you achieve your agendas, and this spread, what happens if people hear these interviews that you're doing and what you're calling self identifying with Satanism? It just happens that everyone's like, yeah, I guess I'm a Satanist. This sounds fantastic. Let's just imagine this is never gonna happen. But let's imagine that it happened. The entire it spreads to the planet. Everyone's like personal sovereignty. Let's stop blowing people up. Let's, let's, let's figure out a way that we can all enjoy this this planet together. What does that look like? Well, everyone's a Satanist. Now, that's what you're saying that the moment that happens, it eradicates itself.
01:14:49 Lucien Greaves: Right. Well, that's something to shoot for, isn't it? I mean, I think some of the people who have been used to Satanism just being an excuse to dress up and all black and a Fedora or a cape or whatever, and frighten their neighbors. They're, they're very upset at what they're doing. And, and I think they're very some of them are very upset about it because we're bringing it out into the open like this in by the you know, just by doing that the very nature of doing that you begin to change what it is, and they don't want that they want it to be this obscure little personal club of theirs. And so, but I feel like it's not worth anything, either. If you're not going to do anything with it, you know? I mean, you have to set the pendulum swinging or, or, you know, get stagnated where you are.
01:15:42 Duncan Trussel: It's a really interesting conundrum here. Because it's the if you if you have a religion that has as it's a rebel as its hero, then the moment that you Yeah, it's so funny that even within Satanism or sects of Satanism, feel threatened by what you're doing and are trying to oppress you. That's hilarious, so that the thing just keeps? It's interesting. It's a really fascinating conundrum. It really is. It Do you have, do you meet for services? Or do you have any kind of ceremonies that you do regularly?
01:16:19 Lucien Greaves: No, it's funny, because I don't know if you heard about the black mass we had scheduled to do at, at Harvard, but we were invited by a student group to perform a black mass. But the thing was, as I knew that would cause controversy, but I thought we could, we could get rid of the controversy by by promoting this as a black mass reenactment, which it was to be we weren't claiming this to be an actual black mass, because the actual black mass is kind of a figment of the imagination. It was always this kind of propaganda by the Catholic Church where people would claim these rituals took place. You know, it kind of transmogrified from the witches Sabbath to the black mass in which you know, babies murdered and all those kinds of things that the consecrated host is violated in everybody, you know, and the whole world falls apart thereafter, whatever. So what we are going to do, is it rather an academic presentation, and as part of that presentation, I was going to explain that given our the general satanic loathing, of wrote protocol procedure in and thoughtless, ritualistic behavior, we're not really, this isn't really something we do. But nonetheless, there have been people who have latched on to the idea of doing a black mass, and for them, it means something. And usually, this is for people who are just kind of walking away from the religion that they were indoctrinated in, right. And it's not, it's not meant to be like a focused attack against Catholics. It's really a declaration of personal independence, you know, it's these people seeing that they can blaspheme or whatever else, and it really doesn't have an effect on them. It feels liberating to them, it's for them. It's not against the other guy, right?
01:18:21 Duncan Trussel: Against Catholicism.
01:18:23 Lucien Greaves: Right? Right. It's kind of against the general cultural programming that they feel that they, they've been oppressed by, or whatever. And, of course, that message never made it out. I didn't expect the kind of outcry that came up in the Boston archdiocese re released this ignorant statement where he was talking about, you know, opening the door to dark forces, he used that kind of terminology, it was insane. And, and there was this big uproar about it. But, but yeah, we don't, you know, we don't typically do rituals or that kind of thing. When we do they definitely have meaning. You know, I'm ordained now where we're a legitimate religious organization now. So I understand the value of funerals, weddings is kind of rituals that commemorate a point in time where you want to show respect for what's happening in this moment in time, you know, that kind of thing. So I do, I do appreciate ritual on that level, but regular services, no, we're going to be opening chapter houses and they, you know, they may engage in those kinds of things. We're going to request that they have some kind of regular meetings and submit to us their minutes and it's up to them if they have those kinds of those kinds of events or not.
01:19:49 Duncan Trussel: Do now...Well, yeah, I understand what you're saying. Well, that's too bad. You know, I you know, everybody I talked to you. Nobody's putting on robes anymore. And that just seems fun to me. Throw on some black robes. mutters some things, see how you feel? It seems like a blast. But that's...
01:20:05 Lucien Greaves: Oh, we'll do it, we'll do it. No. And the pageantry's great. I'm just saying we don't do it as regular services, you're not gonna find us like, every third Friday doing that, or whatever it says the moment calls for I don't know if you saw that we did our pink mass. But that was something where that was an event specific kind of ritual. And that was an ad hoc ritual that we made just to offend that old fucker, Fred Phelps and I dumped my nuts on his mother's grave. And we said that now she's a lesbian in the afterlife, and you're obligated to believe that she is so? So? Yeah, that's to me. That's what a ritual is for. I mean, we were really doing something with that ritual. It wasn't some kind of hidden little event where we were hiding in the, in the bushes, and nobody knew that happened. No, we did that for, you know, ultimately, that got out to a general audience. And that, that really worked. It's, it's magic, for lack of a better word in the real world.
01:21:04 Duncan Trussel: Wouldn't you say you're a good guy?
01:21:07 Lucien Greaves: I wouldn't say that. I don't think it's really up to me to decide.
01:21:11 Duncan Trussel: When you're looking at like the hierarchy of good, you seem to be on... like Fred Phelps, if we're going to like not that you're supposed to create a hierarchy, everything is one everything ultimately originates from some big bang that we don't really understand we are inextricably are inextricably connected to each other. We're all part of this one beautiful force. And there's no way out of that we all are part of one thing, you don't have to call the force, beautiful. But Fred Phelps, if I'm going to create a hierarchy of good, then I'm going to put Fred Phelps at the lowest end that I can possibly find. And I'm going to put somebody like you a social activist, who is fighting for personal autonomy, who is making it who is trying to help gay people get married, who wants to fight for women's rights? You're, I hate to say it, but you seem like a really great person. And you seem driven by impulse to help the world become a better place. Is that fair to say?
01:22:17 Lucien Greaves: I think that's fair to say, I don't think it's really fair for, for me to say it, because I don't, you know, I don't want myself to become the focus of the story. Like I said, I mean, I think this is something a lot of people can get behind. It doesn't really matter who I am, or, and I don't need to be built up to be this kind of remarkable person.
01:22:37 Duncan Trussel: That's what every great person says, Sorry, Lucian, you're, you have to deal with it, man that all the great people say it's not me. It's not I don't want the focus to be on me. But it's an interesting thing. And I think that the more people can, can, you know what, I I'm guilty of the opposite. I'm guilty of doing what the Christians do to you to the Christians, because when I think of Ann Coulter, and when I think of the Pope coming out and saying only two, saying 2% of our priests are molesting kids, did you hear about that? He came... when I hear these things again, and again, again, or when I hear about, you know, I don't mean to keep going back to it. But I just think of like, when I was a kid at the beach, I'm there with my brother, I'm hanging out of the beach, and all of a sudden, I'm barbecue. And when I think about that, and I think about that, in some way being connected to real type of religion, or when I think of the opposite side shooting missiles randomly into a city not caring where they land. With all of these things, I get angry. And I though I marginalize those people in my mind. And it seems like what you're doing is trying to keep that from happening on both sides. You know, the idea being that we're all allowed to be whoever we want to be in this world as long as we don't hurt other people. That makes you a great person. Oh, thank you. Can you we can Would you mind I? Two things and then we can wrap up. Do you have a second?
01:24:16 Lucien Greaves: Yeah, no problem.
01:24:17 Duncan Trussel: Um, one thing would be for people listening who what's something somebody listening could do right now, that... to connect with the spirit of your religion and to make their lives better, what advice would you give to someone listening to right listening right now who, who is self identifying now as a Satanist, what's something that they could do to amplify their life or what somebody what give some advice to the folks listening right now to make their lives better?
01:24:52 Lucien Greaves: See, I often stay away from giving people direct advice because it is about finding your own way. But I will do direct them to our website, you know, I do have a recommended reading list. It explains where we're coming from, I have a few essays available and that kind of thing. And I really, you know, that that really is kind of my focus is, is not, is not trying to bring about followers, but really trying to give people the tools to be leaders themselves to be leaders of their own lives.
01:25:30 Duncan Trussel: What's a tool, what's a tool, what to name a tool that someone could do to start becoming a leader of their own lives, Lucian.
01:25:37 Lucien Greaves: Oh, just just kind of the educational tools, just the kind of just the kind of learning tools that are available to us now, just the kind of critical thinking tools that are available to all of us, you know, just the, the kind of information we're privy to now is is at you know, so much exponentially larger than any other time in history. And we should really be you know, we should really capitalize on that. In books, we really are. I mean, despite the bombs being dropped, and that kind of thing that that is all horrific, but we are in really the most peaceful time in our history, and we should do the best we can to enjoy Well, there's plenty of work to be done. And, you know, people can see what kind of initiatives we're working on. If they check on the website, also, but I would really, you know, strongly encourage people, if they're really looking for somebody to show them the way I would, I would say I would tell, I would encourage them, not to find somebody to show them the way.
01:26:37 Duncan Trussel: Yes, no shit. Beautiful, beautiful. And I'm going to apply that to my own life too. The last thing is, is it possible since you are an ordained minister, can we close this podcast with a satanic prayer?
01:26:56 Lucien Greaves: Oh, yeah, you know, let me let me look up the one that I gave to the Los Angeles Times.
01:27:05 Duncan Trussel: Perfect.
01:27:07 Lucien Greaves: And this was this was in response to as I said the the Supreme Court decision to allow the public prayers and the Los Angeles Times immediately reached out to me, given that decision, asked if there were any satanic prayers that could open the town meeting, and I turned in and here's what I offered. Let me know what you think. Great. Let it let us stand now unbowed and unfettered by arcane doctrines born of fearful minds in darkened times, let us embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat of the Tree of Knowledge and dissipate our blissful and comforting delusions of old. Let us demand that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not their fealty to arbitrary social norms, and illusory categorizations. Let us reason our solutions with agnosticism and all things holding fast only that which is demonstrably true. Let us stand firm against any and all arbitrary authority that threatens the personal sovereignty of one or all that which will not bend must break. And that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise. It is done. Hail Satan.
01:28:21 Duncan Trussel: Hi, Hail Satan. That's awesome. What a beautiful prayer. Wow, thank you so much for giving me this time and for doing this interview. It's been quite enlightening, talking with you. And what are some ways that people listening can reach out to you?
01:28:39 Lucien Greaves: Twitter is @SatanicPsalms, S-A-T-A-N-I-C-P-S-A-L-M-S. And our website is TheSatanicTemple.com.
01:28:53 Duncan Trussel: Beautiful, man.
01:28:55 Lucien Greaves: Find us on Facebook, too. We do a lot of updates on Facebook. And...
01:28:59 Duncan Trussel: That's the most satanic thing you've said so far.
01:29:05 Lucien Greaves: A lot of the action seems to be there.
01:29:08 Duncan Trussel: Okay, cool. Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. And I really appreciate it. Thanks for listening everybody that was Lucian, grieves. And a big thanks to Nature Box. Don't forget to go to naturebox.com forward slash family hour and start waging war against the dark demon that lives inside your love handles. A million times worse than Satan.
01:32:52 [Outro]