Podcasts/ATRS-Ep469

Atheists Talk Radio Show Ep. 469 - Lucien Greaves of The Satanic Temple
Sep 9, 2018
Lucien Greaves is the most prominent and outspoken contemporary Satanist in the world. As spokesperson for The Satanic Temple, Greaves has gained international attention as an advocate for religious liberty and the voice of the Satanic Reformation. He has delivered lectures at Universities and colleges nationwide, and has been a featured speaker at conferences for American Atheists, the American Humanist Association, the Secular Student Alliance, and many others. Greaves has been featured in national media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, Huffington Post Live, CNN, Harper’s Monthly, Newsweek, Fox News, Vice, Salon, Rolling Stone, and many more. Greaves famously made two appearances on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program where the ensuing debates were overwhelmingly adjudged in Greaves’s favor.
https://atheisttalk.libsyn.com/ep-469-lucien-greaves-of-the-satanic-temple

Transcript

[WIP]

Unknown Speaker 0:10 Welcome to atheist talkin Katina ama 50, the progressive voice of Minnesota. Good morning to all of you joining us locally by radio and streaming online. You today's Sunday, September 9 2018. I'm your host Maddie love in studio today with ash Phoenix ashes co founder of satanic Twin Cities. We're both her and I also both serve on the strategic Council. Thanks for joining me today.

Unknown Speaker 0:30 Ash abitibi Here.

Unknown Speaker 0:32 I invited ash on today to chat with a very special guest Lucian grieves. Lucian is co founder and spokesperson for the Satanic Temple. He is arguably the most outspoken contemporary Satanist, quite possibly in the world, and is gaining international attention as a strong advocate for religious liberty and satanic reformation. He has. He has been delivering major lectures at universities spoken at national atheist conferences, and has been a frequent guest on major media outlets such as CNN, Rolling Stone, and many, many others including two fantastic debates with Tucker Carlson of Fox News, where Aleutian did a marvelous job of making Tucker sound even more ridiculous than normal. Mr. Greaves, thank you so much for joining us on the ninth of September at 9am. Because of course, 999 in the upside down world is 666, making this the most obvious day to have you on.

Unknown Speaker 1:24 Good to be here, thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:31 Although this is atheist talk, we do have quite a few Christian listeners and even some socially conservative atheists, both of whom may have some misconceptions about what and who the Satanic Temple is, as the official spokesperson and co founder, can you take a few minutes to maybe share the religious views of the organization that you helped to create?

Unknown Speaker 1:54 Well, I guess I guess the first thing that people should be that should be made clear to people is that we're a non theistic, religious organization. So we don't venerate a personal Satan, we view this metaphorically, as a, as a contextual mythical backdrop for our works in our goals, our ethics and our and our sense of community values and things of that type. That seems to be a real sticking point for a lot of people and make some debate or religious authenticity. That's a much larger question, I guess, and could probably itself full volumes. But my feeling is that non theistic religion is really the way of the future, people are going to culturally identify with religions. And they're still going to identify with the rites and practices of religious organizations that resonate best with them, even if it's the ones that they grew up in, but I think more and more as time goes on, people are going to be less willing, hopefully, to identify with the superstitions that are intellectually insulting, and really can't hold up to scrutiny. And people just can't maintain any longer.

Unknown Speaker 3:12 You know, I was chatting with somebody who actually stopped me on the street about a month ago, which was weird, because I was wearing a T S T shirt. And he had to stop me and I'm a non passing trans woman. So I do raise a lot of eyebrows, which, depending on where I go, and this was the first time I'd ever actually been stopped. And we're having this debate and he was like, asking me about and I was explaining and all that says, you know, the way I understand what TST is, which sounds a bit like what you just described. And I was like, you know, really, if you think about it, all religions are atheistic religions, because I don't believe a god exists anyway.

Unknown Speaker 3:50 Oh, right. And I, I really lost the, the ability to conceal what I do, or what I believe at this point. I, you know, a lot of, we get a lot of T shirts with our merchandise, and I usually have one of the T shirts from each print run we do. So I have a lot of TSA T shirts, and I'm always walking around wearing this stuff. And if I'm sitting on a plane or whatever, and people ask what I do, I just don't have it in me anymore to tell them anything other than the truth. And I've even lost track of, of how people respond to this.

Unknown Speaker 4:34 I'm picturing like, you just like having to educate like, shocked people over and over who really shouldn't be shocked because like, if you sat down in, like, I don't know, the religious or Eastern Orthodox garb next to them, they'd be like, Okay, well, you know, you're, you're a Catholic. No big deal. I'm not worried about it. It's like you sit down with like this other religion, you know, TST and it's like, Oh, you guys are terrible. It's like, have you seen the Catholic church lately? Like we're the ones that are terrible.

Unknown Speaker 4:59 Why? A sense of the shock, you know, it's just it's just the world I'm in every day. So I think I've I'm getting further and further removed, I guess from humanity as time goes on and all this. And I just don't even know what stalking anymore.

Unknown Speaker 5:17 Is there? Is there a story to the founding and the creation of the Satanic Temple that you're able to share?

Unknown Speaker 5:26 Well, yeah, sure I can.

Unknown Speaker 5:28 I just assume there's probably some stories, you're like, you know, I'm not sharing that story. I'll share this one, but I'm not sharing now.

Unknown Speaker 5:36 Well, no, there's there's only one real story to it. This being a public person was never something I would have willingly done, I kind of fell into it. But I was in Cambridge, and I met with somebody who ended up being the other co founder. And he wanted to do a film project. It had to do with religious liberty and things like that. And he wanted to do some kind of documentary or whatever. But the more we talked, and at that time, I already identified as a satanist and had my entire adult life. The idea was, you know, Satan is pushing for religious liberty on the same grounds, that that, you know, evangelical religious groups push for religious liberty, and to see just exactly where the hypocrisy ended and where religious liberty would actually be, would actually be endorsed at an equal playing field by all parties. In so I really wanted to, to consult on this, I wanted Satanism to be represented correctly. And I thought this was a great kind of bit of activist filmmaking. So it was under those auspices that the Satanic Temple was formed. But the idea was that we would do this kind of film project and show people what they could do. And show people kind of underscores this hypocrisy of the religious liberty groups, and also helpfully motivate self identified satanist to kind of fight this battle. And we at the time, we thought that the film project would be central to kind of getting that message out. And then the Satanic Temple could kind of be like anonymous, where you'd have this kind of decentralized organization, and people locally could kind of act under the name of the Satanic Temple and different forms of the Satanic Temple would manifest, you know, some probably with, with separate types of belief systems, even, you know, different sets of values, but there probably be that we assume there'd be that core value of just kind of fighting for their right to, to be recognized on the terms they wanted to be recognized as. But as soon as we started working on this really people started, since we did our first kind of public action, the rick Scott rally, where in Florida, they were endorsing a bill to to allow prayer in school. And we were trying to underscore the unintended consequences of of endorsing this bill on the grounds that this benefited satanic children, people started reaching out to us and really wanted to identify with the Satanic Temple. And it didn't take long it was about the pink mass, where we kind of counter protests of the Westboro Baptist Church and my face was on it and things like that. And people kind of wanted to identify with us affiliate with us and didn't seem interested in, in kind of starting their own Satanic Temple offshoots or whatever else. So we kind of did centralize in the end, being that I became central to it and away from this role of kind of being a consultant. I no longer wanted anything to do with any film project either. This kind of needed to be done more on my terms for me to have anything to do with it at all, and I was already in kind of too deep. So the film project was scrapped entirely, but it was still going to be more of a side project for me and I still kind of hoped that as Lucian grieves, I could stay, have a certain amount of anonymity and live a relatively normal life but that just didn't work out at all. Say,

Unknown Speaker 9:45 how's that working for? You have about a minute left and this this first segment that like as you as you talk about that, I guess what I almost here is like a shining example of what a grassroots org monetization can like become an achieved because like from where you started to where you are now. And it sounds like where you're at now is nothing like what you had planned on becoming when you had on the onset.

Unknown Speaker 10:12 Yeah, and a lot of people, I think try to paint this is because this is this is kind of out in the open that this was the way it went down. And some people kind of like to forward the notion that it really undermines our authenticity that we didn't have the audacity from the very beginning to think that we would grow and expand this large fat fast but to be clear, the the film project was always activist filmmaking the intended purpose was really quite quite the same as anything we've we've always done we just felt that that was our one option really, of trying to get the message out before we had the following that we have now.

Unknown Speaker 10:54 Yeah, I would imagine most people don't say you know what I'm gonna do today. I'm gonna start a religion like Alright, we're gonna go into a break, please, people. Please stay with us with a break or return with our guests Lucian grieves. You're listening to atheist talk on AM 950 K TNF, the progressive voice of Minnesota

Unknown Speaker 11:17 Welcome back to AM 950 K TNF, the progressive voice of Minnesota you're tuned in to atheist talk I'm your host Maddie love in studio with the co founder of satanic Twin Cities ash Phoenix, and joined earphone by spokesperson and co founder of this is tannic temple Lucian grieves. Before we get back to the show, I just wanted to let listeners know that in two weeks, Seth Andrews will be in studio with us and immediately following he will be joining us for brunch, a cucumbers restaurant in a diner. And then later in the afternoon, Seth will be speaking at the monthly meeting of Minnesota atheists, head over to m an atheist.org. For all the details and to register a space is limited. If you're interested in getting involved, the conversation we're having today, the phone number is 952-946-6205. If you'd rather you can email us at radio at mn atheist.org. Tweet us at atheist talk or leave a comment on the Facebook post for this episode over at facebook.com/atheist suck. That's like way too much stuff for me to read. Thanks for Thanks for sitting on hold that solution.

Unknown Speaker 12:14 My pleasure.

Unknown Speaker 12:17 So getting back we were talking about you were talking about like how TST kind of started almost just with activism. And honestly, like one of the main reasons I became a member of TST in large part was the amount of activism that TST does and keeping the religion and government separate defending bodily autonomy, and protecting the rights of women with these things that you had in mind, as far as your activism, like as as TST started to grow.

Unknown Speaker 12:45 Oh, yeah. I think people would be amazed how much of this we had in mind from the very start. We did a lecture at Harvard about modern Satanism, before we even did the pink mass. And I think back on that now and in a lot of the planning we had done sounded kind of far flung, far reaching. But we followed through on all of it at that. At that time, we stood up before an audience that was really just interested in the topic of Satanism, we talked about the forthcoming bathmat campaign for our monument that we've created to be placed alongside 10 commandments, monuments on public property where we're fighting litigation in Arkansas right now. We talked about the reproductive rights campaigns and a lot a number of other things that we've we've ultimately followed through on it's been, you know, these things have necessarily taken many, many years. In fact, we only now got a ruling from from Missouri, on our first reproductive rights case that went to the state Supreme Court. But that those those types of things, like I said, had been planning like good, good solid five years ago. And even though there's the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the lower court's dismissal of our suit, it had nothing to do with our legal arguments. It was only on technicality of standing. We have two more suits moving forward. And the standing issue was, of course, that we hadn't filed the suit. When the plaintiff in that case in that particular case was pregnant, so they're saying it was a moot point. We have two other cases still in play where they were both filed when the plaintiffs were pregnant. So we'll see how that works out. And we're fighting against abortion restrictions in Missouri in those cases. And in Arkansas, you know, they put up a 10 commandments monument on the Capitol grounds. They said that this was an open forum, essentially a free speech zone, the cap foregrounds so any, any private donation of a monument would be equally considered, supposedly. But we found that that wasn't the case, clear points in a clear case of religious or viewpoint discrimination. They turned down our monument in favor of the 10 commandments monument. We're we're almost certain, of course that the 10 commandments monument will come down, and we'll be victorious in that case.

Unknown Speaker 15:28 Yeah, just because just for clarification, you would rather see the 10 commandments monument come down and have no religious monuments there. But if they're gonna keep the 10 commandments monument up, then they need to be free and equality among all religious views. Is that a good summation?

Unknown Speaker 15:46 I'm not sure which I prefer. If the 10 commandments monument is there and they allow the satanic monument to go on the same grounds? I don't really think there is a problem except for the fact that then then I guess they're just dealing with space restrictions, then first, are religious monuments can you possibly have, you can't you can't represent them all. But that's the door they opened, I think it's a little less tenable to expect that, that everybody can have placements. But once once they open the door on an issue like religion, they really can't pick and choose. So I think it makes more sense for the state just to take the 10 commandments monument down, then to say, Okay, we're, we're accepting your monument. Sure. But what we're really avoiding is the worst case scenario of one religious voice having exclusive privilege and the and at least the appearance of having co opted the power and the authority of the state. Government.

Unknown Speaker 16:52 No, I I hear you completely there. We actually, I don't know how there was the veterans memorial here in Belle Plaine, Minnesota. That TST commissioned, I guess I don't know if the memorial piece was ever actually built. But I saw at least artists render it. Yeah, it was gorgeous monument.

Unknown Speaker 17:13 Yeah, it well, it's in it's in our Salem headquarters right now. But that that was particularly irksome case because with the bathmat monument we have that constructed in then we made our legal cases first towards Oklahoma, where they took down their 10 commandments monument, and now towards Arkansas. But in the case of Belle Plaine, Minnesota, where they already had a Christian memorial on on his public grounds. But to be clear, that was never approved. My understanding is the City Council, the local government over there, never, never approved for this, this Christian veterans memorial to be erected. Somebody has dumped it there. And then after it had been there a few months, they claimed it was some kind of it had some kind of standing, it was some kind of landmark that was dumped there. It had been there for more than 24 hours. So therefore it couldn't be taken away or whatever. But the Freedom From Religion Foundation on behalf of a local complaint, and then it went to the city council, should we take this down? Or what should we do? Some evangelical litigation group thought they were clever and said, Well, you can open this up as a free speech zone. And you know, other people can put veterans memorials as well and it will allow the the Christian memorial to stay. So that's what they did. So then we applied to put a bar Memorial which had very specific parameters. And that's important because it's not likely we can use this monument for anything else because it had certain size restrictions had. You know, it had to have something to do with Belle Plaine itself. So it has a plaque on it, dedicating it specifically to Belle Plaine veterans. And so we got permission from Belle Plaine to erect our monument before we had it built. So we had it built, we raised the funds to do this, we we went through the efforts to get this all done. And then only at the point where we were telling belt playing that we're ready to dedicate this monument, we're ready to put it on the public grounds. Did they then go back into the city council and say, Okay, we're killing the we're killing the free speech zone. And, you know, some people have argued with us that we should leave it alone there. I really felt it was important to litigate this, which we're, we're in the process of doing now. Finally, after a good year since they were maybe more since they shot us out. But I don't think we can let it stand where we have governments. You know, these locales He's deciding that that they've opened a free speech zone when they have no intention of keeping it free. I'm gonna have to go and break it down at the point where where we call them on there

Unknown Speaker 20:18 thank you for tuning to atheist talk on AM 950 K tnfi Maddie love in studio this week with ash Phoenix and joined by the satanic devil co founder and spoce spokesperson Lucian grieves. Before we continue with our conversation we need to take a moment to thank our sponsors all of us at atheist talk are asking for your help and keeping secular voices on the public airwaves and in podcast form. Eight the stock is produced with funding from the Minnesota atheists and cucumbers restaurant in a diner. Please consider visiting our sponsors and if you do let them know that you appreciate their support of atheist talk. If you'd like to advertise on the program and keep us on the air please contact radio at mn atheists.org. This radio program is put together by dedicated volunteers and the generous donations of people like you. If you're able to help with a donation you can just over to a radio fun page or by becoming a patron. You can sign up for as little as $1 An episode over at patreon.com/atheist documents to all of our extended interviews, discussions and skullduggery, where the FCC isn't able to apply its antiquated religious restrictions on what words we use. Minnesota atheists is a 501 C three tax deductible organization when we say we couldn't do the show without you, we really do mean it. And we are truly grateful for all of your contributions. Music for atheist talks by composer and member Brent, Michael David, without Mischief Managed back to the conversation with Lucian, grieves, and Lucian. I'm so sorry that I had to cut you off at that break.

Unknown Speaker 21:30 Oh, yeah, no problem.

Unknown Speaker 21:33 The belt plane thing. It's like such a, you know, here in Minnesota or Yeah, especially in Twin Cities that was like, that was like the battle like I first became aware of like the other Satanic Temple doing things here in state. And I was like, Yes, this is fantastic. Like, it's more than just, I mean, the FFRF is fantastic. And but it's like, I feel like when the Satanic Temple shows up, people like, Oh, fine, I guess we have to, like, acknowledge our religious hypocrisy now.

Unknown Speaker 22:03 I mean, the belt play monument is one of the things that made me more active within tst. And hey, Lucia, it's actually been quite just kind of absorbing everything you've been saying. But, I mean, I've been a member since peak mass. And I saw you guys working Bell playing, and I'm just like, I now I really need to get active back in the group here. So

Unknown Speaker 22:21 yeah, we really have to appreciate I mean, I, I haven't lost sense of the fact that I'm on. I'm on the East Coast, I'm in one of the most, most liberal areas in the world. And if any, if people recognize me out on the streets, it's only a positive thing. I really has to give credit to our representatives in the South and the Midwest and other places where the fight is daily and very real, you know. And I met with, with somebody from Belle Plaine, who came out to Salem to see our headquarters not very long ago, and she had tears in her eyes for what had what had taken place in Belle Plaine, she was a belt playing Resident and local. But to her it was no, it meant so very much. And, you know, you contrast that again, sometimes the way the press handles us as a, as a massive prank, massive PR ploy or whatever they whatever they think it is that's going on here, you know, whatever they think it is that that we've dedicated our lives to, and our livelihoods that there could be that is whimsical is all that is, it's nice to know that some people really get it and are in the fight with us.

Unknown Speaker 23:42 Speaking of media coverage, do you feel like on whole, like the media coverage of TST has been fair?

Unknown Speaker 23:51 Usually, usually it is I have to say, I mean, usually the facts surrounding what we do, are presented or presented rather clearly. The rally we had recently I thought was was a bit different. There was a lot of irresponsible reporting there. And but it went and also, I think, consistently, the kind of bad reporting we deal with is when people kind of try to speak to our motives, the overuse of the word trolling, you know, they the idea that this is just sheer prankster ism and things like that, but there's not not a deeper message to it. And to be clear, I don't object to prankster ism but the idea that that that prankster ism isn't, isn't a tactic towards the towards the greater end, but is, is its own activity in and of itself or its own, for its own purposes is kind of is rather misguided, I think,

Unknown Speaker 24:54 on the fact that you would dedicate your entire life to a prank is kind of like really Would he really do that?

Unknown Speaker 25:03 Well, I think people don't realize the amount of work we do. So I have to realize each time an article comes up about us, or each time we do an activity, a new group of people are hearing about it. So to them, it might feel like it's kind of a one off or, or whatever else, it might seem a bit more plausible to them that we're just kind of that we are just kind of pulling a prank. But there's been a, a documentary in the works about us for the past couple of years, which of course, I haven't seen I and we're not, you know, separate director is working on it. But she's, she's very good. I've seen her other, Her other films, I know, they've gotten a lot of great material. And they've seen us hard at work in the past couple of years. They've been there through the, through the the kind of thick and the thin and they were there, they rally recently, we had in Arkansas, where we were kind of it felt to me surrounded by gunman in a hole in the Deep South, putting forward a very unpopular argument. And and I have, I have high hopes that when that comes out, people will have a clearer perspective of who we are.

Unknown Speaker 26:15 So have you noticed, I'm really happy when you said that the person doing the documentary, you think is somebody upstanding? Because like, lately, when I hear that, hey, I just watched this documentary and some, it's like, it's gonna probably it's not really a documentary, it's op ed. So I'm happy to hear this as a good person. But have you noticed a change in media coverage covering the Satanic Temple, like as you become more visible?

Unknown Speaker 26:42 No, not really, the real problem is, is that the media is just not given to complex issues right now. So we have a campaign called gray faction, where, you know, can't it's a long standing kind of initiative of ours, where we're fighting back against improper mental health care treatments, therapeutic tactics that help contribute to the Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s, recovered memory therapies, therapy related to multiple personality disorder now known as dissociative identity disorder in the kind of pseudo sciences that have attached to that. And that's really been a focus of a lot of our efforts. But it's almost impossible to get media coverage about because it's a more complicated topic than can be summarized within a headline, it's just not is click Beatty in where it's click Beatty, it demands a lot of fact checking in right now. The media is such where journalists just aren't doing those kinds of long form pieces that demand a lot of fact checking and demand that a journalist really know the difference between the legitimacy of claims we're making as opposed to claims professionals we're going up against our making. So some of the more complicated things we work on, just don't get coverage at all. Whereas, you know, for doing something kind of bombastic and really visible, something that can be summarized in a headline. We just find that the journalists seem to be working on to our deadlines now. And that's just where we're at Overall, it's this isn't just a matter of how the Satanic Temple is represented. This is a matter of how media now works in their clickbait environment.

Unknown Speaker 28:34 Yeah, when I first saw the gray faction stuff about the growth factor, because I was oblivious of that until I started, like actually looking to join. I was like, yes, like, I'm in the healthcare field. One of my big things, soapbox issues is standing up for science based medicine. And I guess what frustrates me so much about having like, the need for the gray faction is that like, when you say you're, you're like going up against professionals, but you're taking the scientific medical consensus, that's the side you're on. And it's like use if you're fighting against these, for lack of a better term, quack, medical professional, so at least that's from the from the outside. That's what I see. Ya know,

Unknown Speaker 29:19 and I think that's correct. We are really taking the view that is empirically supported, and that I think the majority of people in the field take the problem is just not enforcing against this kind of fringe group, and they've kind of fallen through the cracks. And it's, I think there's kind of a prevalent feeling that if you go up against them, you're likely to be slandered as as endorsing child abuse and somebody listening from the outside will wonder how that how that happens. But when it comes to contesting the notion of repressed memories, and where it leads See the effectiveness of drawing forth those memories through hypnosis, which, of course, experimental studies have shown science has kind of confirmed that the these methods of trying to recover memories, we do confabulations and false memories more often than not if they ever recover any legitimate memories at all. And really the practice should be banned. But when you when you go up against this, you have people claiming that all they're saying is that sexual abuse is traumatic, because it's usually traumatic memories of sexual abuse that they're saying are repressed. And if you're saying anything, otherwise, well, then you're just trying to cover up for the fact that abuse happens. And this goes even further than, you know, they were they have conspiracy theories attached to these repressed memories, Illuminati mind control, you know, satanic ritual abuse, things like that. And so you can go from people claiming that there's a new world order, you can give the lie to that claim. And then, and then people will claim that you're endorsing child abuse from there is actually been effective in shutting down criticism, at least within the professional field.

Unknown Speaker 31:19 And that is, so I, as a health care professional, and like I said, That's my soapbox is like, standing up big tick quack medical stuff. I mean, that is so frustrating, because like, it's demonstrated, we have proof of real harm that these repressed memories and stuff these false repressed memories have done, like where people have gone to jail for 20 years, and then they get exonerated, or they've lost their livelihoods. I mean, all this stuff that happened in the late 80s and early 90s of people's lives being destroyed by this just junk science that has been thoroughly discredited and deceived, that it can't it's not just gone is really disheartening.

Unknown Speaker 32:02 Well, it's not only the people who end up being accused of having abused people where they've probably never abused anybody before. Because based on their recovered memory claim that somebody suddenly remembered that they had been abused by that person. But imagine somebody who has been abused and is traumatized. And they go into one of these quack therapists office and the quack therapist is telling them Oh, no, there must be much more in your mind. And then they start feeding them crippling delusions, rather than a perspective that will help them pull through this kind of trauma. To me, that's, that's a real, real crime against humanity. And it's It's intolerable that it's still accepted in the mental health profession today.

Unknown Speaker 32:53 Yeah, just that doesn't, that doesn't help you grow. It's like when somebody who's grieving is told by a psychic that you can talk to their loved one like you'd never get that chance, like go through the proper therapy or the proper grieving process with the things that you need to do to make yourself more healthy. And we are just about to go into a break. But when we come back, if you can, I was hoping you could tell us a bit about this new TST channel a satanic space that I saw a trailer for but we are going to head into a break this is Maddie love in studio with ash Phoenix, you're listening to AM 950 K TNF, the progressive voice of Minnesota thank you for tuning in to atheist talk on AM 950 K TNF I'm Maddie love in studio this week with my good friend ash Phoenix from stanic Twin Cities. And we're chatting with spokesperson and co founder of the Satanic Temple Lucian grieves solution before we went into the break, I had mentioned something about it's called it's called the satanic space. I saw a trailer on YouTube but that is the extent of my knowledge, are you able to shed any additional light or whet our appetites?

Unknown Speaker 34:03 The Satanic space is something we're doing in collaboration with an online streaming platform called video space in satanic space is going to be our own channel on video space with its own URL. So it's kind of its own separate thing, where we'll be able to livestream events from across the nation that are attached to Chapter activity or other Satanic Temple activity. We'll be able to put our own professionally produced documentaries in regular shows and podcasts on that platform. And we have the resources available through video space the professional editing equipment, camera gear, trained professionals will help us kind of put all this together to put on the the platform and we also want the platform to be able to accommodate it will it can accommodate real time chat along with the live streaming, in other kind of chat and communication functions, maybe individual chapter blogs, blogs of our own other types of information we want to pose. And we're really hoping to move people's activity. Satanic Temple activity at least more and more away from the toxic environment of Facebook and other standard mega social media platform. Activity is something that, that builds more of a sense of community, we think we think this is really the way to go about it. And we have high hopes for it. It rolls out on Halloween where we'll be live streaming our activities that night, from our Salem headquarters, and we have a lot of other kinds of stuff we've produced in advance that we can dump on the platform at the same time. Because of the cost that goes into this, there's, there's going to be, it's either going to be subscription based, or people can see these things via payment, one one item at a time, you know, you can kind of have that ala carte menu. And if you just want to watch one thing you can, you can just watch that. But we really hope that this this model will will help kind of sustain our activities and build a sense of community at the same time and, and we'll see how it goes. It's kind of a big experiment. But I kind of think in hope that this is kind of an evolution, away from what we know is social media now and a new way for subcultures to kind of collect online, even even when they're at a great geographical distance from one another.

Unknown Speaker 36:53 So it's like satanic Amazon Prime, but without my racist uncle. I don't know if that's a good, good description or not.

Unknown Speaker 37:01 I like the idea that I can either subscribe to the whole thing and watched over I want or just like, hey, you know what, I'm, I'm short on funds, but you know, I really want to see that video, I really want to see that talk. That's a really cool idea.

Unknown Speaker 37:14 Yeah, and it gives an opportunity for us working with the video space crew to elaborate campaigns of our as a project. And of course, one of the first things we did was put together material about gray faction to put together our own kind of our long gray faction documentary just to explain what we're doing, what this means for for mental health care, and who we're really up against, as well as showing some of our activities and protesting at the conference at the conferences where people who endorse the pseudo scientific ideas are, are congregated. So in that way, I kind of feel like we're, we can bypass the media in a way and get the message out ourselves. And I'm really happy that we have the opportunity to do that not many people can really enlist the support of professional film crews on demand like that. But the the monetization structure is such that, you know, video space gets a gets a piece of it, to make up the cost as well. And hopefully it can sustain itself, we'll see.

Unknown Speaker 38:26 Does it help? Like, when I guess I don't know how much TST is involved in in creating the this the stuff that's gonna go on the channel the content, but does it help like when you're able to, I mean, obviously paid people that have the people that your pain, be invested at all like going, Hey, I like what you guys are doing here. You guys are doing really good work. I mean, does that make it easier to recruit the wrong word, but like, you know, to get people together to put to put this to create this content?

Unknown Speaker 38:55 Oh, for us, it's the only way. We're in a position where because of who we are, pretty much the only people who will work with us are the people really believe in what we're doing. Nobody's neutral on working with the Satanic Temple, you know, so we were approached by people at Vinnie spacey is the owner of video space. And she put the company together and she she lost some of her employees from what I understand. Just from from coming into partnership with the Satanic Temple. We have situations where lawyers won't represent us because of who we are, which is just incredible to me. Insurance companies won't insure us because we're the Satanic Temple. That's where we're at right now with our after school Satan clubs, which we put in place to kind of combat evangelical after school clubs and schools offer an alternative. We just can't get insurance coverage for it right now. So on a project like this on having the online streaming platform You can be pretty sure that the people we're working with must must be supportive of us.

Unknown Speaker 40:06 So have you considered reaching out to I hear Jeff Sessions is putting together a religious liberty Task Force, I'm sure he'd be interested in supporting the religious liberty TSD members

Unknown Speaker 40:18 leave me where we're keeping close track of the language being used and the intentions that are being put forward the claims regarding those intentions, and when we plan on, on exploiting those arguments for sure. Right now, currently, our application or 1023 application is in process with the IRS and asking for religious tax exemption wasn't something we were going to do, on principle, because we disagree with the notion that these religious groups or religious entities shouldn't have to pay their taxes. But at the point where you have an administration that's trying to get the Johnson Amendment, we're feeling that, you know, we're already at a massive disadvantage when we're up against organizations like Liberty Council, the Alliance Defending Freedom and other such evangelical groups that are really trying to initiate a coup of the United States in the name of theocracy. At that point, we're going to adjust our tactics and try to take, try to engage in on their terms, and then take every advantage we can get. Yeah, we'll see. You know, we'll see if we're approved.

Unknown Speaker 41:38 And unfortunately, we are actually just about out of time that I can't even tell you how sad I am about that. But I really do appreciate you do join us today. Thank you so much.

Unknown Speaker 41:49 Great, thank you. It's great being up.

Unknown Speaker 41:51 All right. Well, thank you for tuning to atheist talk. I'm proud to be on the earth Minnesota atheists and I hope you've enjoyed the show. Show depends on the generous support of our members, sponsors and donors, please consider sponsoring the show to do donation like in Minnesota or atheist, or Patreon page. This has been atheist doc and am 950 K TNF, the progressive voice of Minnesota all opinions and ideas expressed in today's show are the pains of the guests and the host they do not necessarily represent the opinions and ideas of Minnesota atheists.