Podcasts/Sacred Tension-Process ChurchMASTERED6zygf
Process_ChurchMASTERED6zygf SUMMARY KEYWORDS tst, people, called, process, satan, lucien, satanic, church, satanic temple, rock candy, great, feel, skinny puppy, tsd, members, point, represent, friends, amazing, absolutely SPEAKERS Stephen Bradford Long, William Morrison
00:00 You're listening to a rock candy podcast.
Stephen Bradford Long 00:02 Hey, I'm Will and they call me the doctor. And I'm Joe, the maestro, we host a podcast called common creatives where we break apart the art, we love to see what makes it tick. Basically, we give you the definitive take on whatever or whoever we're discussing, you don't need to go anywhere else. So check out common creatives wherever you listen to podcasts. This is sacred tension, the podcast about the spiritual discipline of asking questions. My name is Steven Bradford long and we are here on the rock candy Podcast Network. For more shows like this one, go to rock candy recordings.com. All right. Well, as usual, before we get started, we have just a few pieces of housekeeping first, we are continuing to grow the rock candy Podcast Network. And so we already have some amazing shows on board. We have Bible bash, bubble and squeak eleventy life, sacred tension, of course, and we are continuing to grow the network if you have a podcast or if you have an idea for a podcast and you're interested in what we're doing, if you're interested and kind of the weird, indie quirky, kind of, say, 20, post Christian glittery unicorn thing that we have going on, then please reach out to me and pitch your idea you can do that by you can do that via the contact page at Steven Bradford long.com. And I cannot wait to hear your pitch. Of course, I also have to thank my patrons on Patreon. The patrons are the lifeblood of this show, they ensure that the show has a long life. And that everything else that I'm involved with has a long life as well. So if you'd like the live shows that we're putting on with rock candy, if you like the other podcast if you'd like the bands that we're producing at Rock Candy. All of that is helped by your patronage. So I have to thank my latest patrons Oh, and by the way, I do record my shows kind of way part way far apart. And so if I end up missing your name, if you're a patron and I end up missing your name, I'm so very sorry. I'm I will be sure to get to your name soon in one of the upcoming episodes. So if I don't say your name in this one, don't worry. It'll come up and one of the forthcoming shows. So today eight I have to thank ad Sam Raven, maj wall seven, Victoria, Lauren Stewart, Darren and Harry hoof clop. And thank you all so much. You are keeping my cats fed. And you are making sure that I have enough caffeine to get through another week of content creation, you are supporting my crippling content creation addiction and it really is kind of crippling like, it really does kind of fuck up your life. I spend way too many hours editing these shows. But it's all worth it. I do it all for you. Alright, well with all of that out of the way. I am incredibly excited to welcome William Morrison to the show. He is one of the original National Council members of the Satanic Temple. He is a former member of the legendary band skinny puppy, and He is the executive producer of T S T TV. All right, William, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks. So, okay, we have so much to talk about. And I'm kind of like struggling here because you're I'm looking at my list of stuff that I want to talk to you about and feeling kind of overwhelmed. So the the main thing that I want to talk to you about and this will require some kind of explaining and introducing for the audience because no one has heard of this shit. This is completely new for I would say 90% of my audience. I want to talk to you about the process Church of the final judgement. And so the process Church of the right and the process church to the final judgment is this weird, cult kind of satanic cult satanic.
William Morrison 04:44 I wouldn't say satanic. Okay. So, yeah, so the process described themselves or were described as a deviant psychotherapy called.
Stephen Bradford Long 04:53 I like that. So I'm already here for ya. I'm here for it.
William Morrison 04:58 Right and so The you know, the process were was started by a group of architects in England, okay. And, and they were Scientologists, actually. And then they broke away from Scientology. And, and the process was, was born at that point.
Stephen Bradford Long 05:16 Fantastic. So the process church is at kind of this weird intersection of all of these interesting issues for the Satanic Temple because it has to do with witch hunts, which of course, the Satanic Temple is very interested in kind of moral panics and witch hunts and the Satanic Panic, you know, TSD, of course, has a whole campaign called gray faction, people can listen to my interview with the leaders gray faction with the director of gray faction if you're interested in that. And, but it also has to do with kind of original, you know, Lucien Greaves and his conversation with you. Lucien Greaves for people who don't know is the founder of tst. He talked about how the process church was very influential, and in his and Malcolm Jerry's conception of tst. Yes, so, yeah, so it's kind of a it's historically important for us. Right. And so we are, we are Satanist. And this podcast is, is more and more being listened to by Satanists. I have a lot of other you know, weird, crazy progressive Christians and atheists and pagans and whatnot, who listen. But understanding the process church seems to be really central to understanding TST as well. Also, I have to say that there is a fantastic documentary about the process church on TST TV called Sympathy for the Devil, and it is absolutely amazing. And I just recently I watched I finished it today, actually, and it's great. So tell us some about your own involvement with the process church, like what, what got you interested in the process?
William Morrison 07:05 Yeah, that's an interesting story. I mean, the reason that, that Lucien and I became friends, which predates GSC, by like, God, 15 years, I guess, was due to the process. So that's a long story as well. But But, so I moved to California, in 1992, and leaves Nigeria, when skinny puppy got signed to American recordings, and we all moved into a house on Zuma Beach in California that the record label had Rick Rubin, actually from Def Jam, and who started American residence this house for us, it's the famous old house, he actually lives in it now. And, you know, bands like the band and, and Hendrix, and all these people recorded there had this really long musical lineage. And at the time, that was, we're talking like, predating the web, at that point, the visual web web browser that was released. And, and I was really into, I was a Unix guy, and I was really interested in the internet, and I could see that you know, what was going to come next, or some version of it anyways, and and so, you know, we were trying to figure out what we were going to do with this project and what we would call this record. And, and then, we had invited Genesis PURE to come down and stay with us and work with us on the project. Genesis is considered to be the godfather of industrial music. He's from a band called Throbbing Gristle and psyche TV. And, you know, has created his own sort of called, which is called Toby, I'm, I'm sure lots of your listeners probably are aware of that. Jen walked in the door and, and we became fast friends. And I think I told the story when I was talking to Lucien but you know, I was just, I was just basically sitting in a brainstorming with him about what we might do with the whole concept of the record and where it was gonna go, you know, in terms of what we were what we were trying to create was skinny puppy at that time. And, and I looked at Jen and I said, you know, I've got this idea, and I call it cultural engineering. And he started laughing at me. And, and he, he was wearing a fanny pack. And he reached, he reaches and he pulls out his business card and hands it to me, and it says Genesis PURE large cultural engineer.
Stephen Bradford Long 09:37 That's hilarious. Yes, it's also very sinister like I can, I can imagine the conspiracy theorists like getting all over that. Yeah.
William Morrison 09:47 Well, the thing with Jen is that I mean, dating back to that time is that he was involved with you know, the Merry Pranksters you know, all these and, and, you know, when he was in LA, he would go stay with Timothy Leary at his house before he passed and Uh, you know, so he had a lot of friends that were all, you know, cultural pranksters, if you will. Yeah. And anyway, so so we started talking, and we started talking about some symbology. And, you know, and just the whole idea of the internet and all this kind of stuff that was going on at the time. And he said, he asked me, have you ever heard of the process and I hadn't at the time. And, and Jen had a whole archive of the process materials. So he started bringing that stuff forth. And we started looking at it and, and over, the singer from skinny puppy, got very intrigued and interested by it. And the thing that really compelled us was the idea of the union of union of opposites. In the process, church, which was, you know, there was Christian and satanic elements within the church. Yes. And, and, you know, it was really about balance and, and it's something that really appealed to us, and all the symbols and everything were really amazing as well. And I've got a tattoo on my arm, that Genesis and organ I got together, one day in, in, in, in Hollywood, when we were working on that project. The so, we so at that point, we all thought the process was completely different, and thought it would be really fun to to engage that sort of idea and also kind of jumpstart, you know, this the idea that the process was still in existence. And that's how the whole thing started. So that was my introduction to the process. And I you know, I started to delve into Robert Dickinson's writings and Robert Grimson was, was really the centerpiece of the process. And the person that penned all those sort of core literature around the process, and he really inspired incredible writer as well. So yeah, go on. No, no, don't go ahead.
Stephen Bradford Long 11:51 And just out of personal curiosity, I'm I haven't looked this up yet. I'm sure it's like one Google search away if I look for it, but are his writings like available online? If people want to go look at it?
William Morrison 12:03 Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a couple really popular ones like if you if you search for humanity as a devil, that's a that's a really good example of decryption is writing and, but there's so much yeah, I mean, you can find this stuff.
Stephen Bradford Long 12:16 Very cool. So talk some about the kind of philosophic, how is it that the process influences the Satanic Temple? Because, you know, Lucien Greaves talked about how in his conversation with you and by the way, this is very, like satanic insider baseball for for listeners who are not Satanists. So if you aren't a Satanist, you might not find this conversation as interesting. And I'm really sorry about that. I'll get I'll get back to talking to sex workers and socialists in the next episode. But But Lucian, in that conversation with you on his Patreon, I think that conversation is also available on TST TV, talks about how the process was more influential on TST, than Church of Satan even was and I think that that's kind of surprising to a lot of people because most people, they hear Satanism and they instantly think Anton LaVey they instantly think Church of Satan, they think, you know, kind of his his iron Randian, social Darwinist bullshit. And so in what way is the process more influential on TST than even Church of Satan? At least that's kind of the word and that's what I understood Lucien saying in that conversation.
William Morrison 13:49 Yeah, well, you kind of answered your own question there. Because the thing that about the process was they were very much a do gooder cult, if you will. And, you know, there was an there's a lot of parallels between the way TSE operates and the process operates as well there were I think, we're our membership right now is about 100,000. At the peak of the process, they have the same amount of members, you know, around the world, mostly centered in the US but but they you know, they ran food lines, they had these coffee shops you know, where where, I mean, one of the main differences is I think that they actually you know, they had priests in black robes and and all that kind of stuff that we go out and possible
Stephen Bradford Long 14:34 stare look was amazing. Like, their their cloaks, and they're like, Oh, my God, and they're, like, the combination of like, black, purple and red and it was so awesome. Like their design. Yeah, it was so compelling.
William Morrison 14:49 Yeah, and also, you know, they really promoted themselves through pop culture. So there's a lot of people like Mariana Mariana faithful and, and, and, in part Parliament, you know, like, they were just like a really cool sort of movement that was happening. That was almost like, they were kind of hippie ish, but they were sort of anti hippie at the same time. And, but but they did a lot of public work. And, and, and, you know, that was, they were all about compassion. And and that is, I think, to me is always like the core difference between the Church of Satan and no disrespect to us on the day. I think he was a performer and a really interesting character
Stephen Bradford Long 15:26 and a pioneer for his day. Yes,
William Morrison 15:29 absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And so, you know, I respect that history. And I think we all do for at least at the core of what we're doing. But, but the differences that were, you know, that I think CLS is based on being self centered, and TSD, is completely the opposite. And that, you know, that we're that we're about being compassionate to other human beings and creatures, and, and, you know, and making positive change, the process was very similar in that regard. So, they, you know, they did a lot of outreach and community service. But yes, there the basic sort of philosophy of the process was, in terms of their image was that they wanted to scare people into realizing that the world was in a state of crisis. So they want it to be as scary as possible in terms of their image.
Stephen Bradford Long 16:16 That's really interesting. And, you know, just what immediately comes to mind for me when you say that are other kinds of protest movements, like I think of extinction rebellion, who, who are kind of trying to simulate what a climate crisis would be, like, by shutting down traffic and that kind of thing. And so, you know, I, I immediately think of other kind of social justice and protest movements that shock or frighten or kind of destabilize in order to get across the a really, really important point. So you so you seem and listening to that conversation with Lucien Greaves he as well, you both seem to to have a generally positive view of the process. Oh, yeah, for sure. Okay. Yeah. And so there are also elements in the process, especially near the end that were kind of culty. Um, yeah, so I think, can you talk can you speak to that speaks? Well, and here, I guess, here's my question. In particular, the, the the struggle of still finding good in a particular organization, even or in a particular religion, even when we start to see the ways in which it can be destructive, or it can fall apart. And I'm wondering if you could talk some to that process, because I think we all struggle with that in some way. So yeah, I'm just curious to hear what you say about that.
William Morrison 18:00 Yeah. So in order for me to really talk about that, I have to lean in a bit more of the story. Yeah, absolutely. So with skinny puppy, the band imploded when we were in Malibu, it was in not in a very nice way. And we all kind of went our separate ways. I went back to Canada at that point. And we had launched process.org. And I was still pushing the project ahead, but I was kind of on my own at that point. And, and then I got an email one day from somebody who said that they were the first child born to the process. And then I got a flood of emails from people who were actually members of the process. And that came out of nowhere. And at first, it was a bit intimidating, because I didn't, and then I realized, I got contacted from the Alberni chapter, which was still in existence. And then I got contacted from the Toronto chapter, which was still in existence. They weren't, they weren't done, they just went underground. So, so that and they, and their approach was, you know, client, I guess, would be the word. They had a lot of questions. So I engaged with them. And, you know, I told him about the nature of how we were representing them and our project and who skinny Puppy was, and it resonated with them. And so it was all good, that was fine. But then, what happened next is I became a conduit for people that were part of the process back in the day, to reconnect with the existing chapters, and, and they actually started calling me the catalyst. You know, and I became this, like, waystation for X process members. So I got to hear all these stories. And it was super interesting. And that's about the same time that I that Lucien got in contact with me because he was interested in the process. And he was starting to formulate maybe the idea of writing a book about the process. And that's how we met and that's, that's circa probably 95. Fascinating. Yeah, it was really, really interesting and, and I eventually was in Toronto, I'm Canadian. And And I met with one of the priests of the Toronto chapter. And we sat down and we had lunch together. And, and he told me that, you know, everybody in the process had been talking about me and us, and you know that what we had done, and they were totally, totally fine with it, and felt that we were representing them a way that they, you know, that they were okay with, but they just, they didn't want to become public. And then what happened next was the Albany chapter decided that they would like to become public, we had the domain for process.org. So I actually turned over the domain to them, and they went online for a while, and, and then quickly decided that was a bad idea. When Well, so what happened with the process was that there were a couple of books written about the process. So one of the, I think, mistakes that they made, besides, you know, the way that they're representing themselves visually on streets was they went during the whole Madison, when Madison was in jail, they visited some of the process members visited and it became public knowledge. And, and, and then Maury Terry wrote this book that was a New York Times bestseller called the ultimate evil and he takes the process for, you know, for telling, you know, mass and his call to Coke, you know, kill Sharon Tate, and, and you know, all that stuff, which was all bullshit. The process to them, they had to be taken off the shelves, but it was the there was already so many in circulation. At that point. That's it. And then the FBI started kicking down doors at that point.
Stephen Bradford Long 21:36 That's crazy. So, yeah,
William Morrison 21:39 it was it's a really crazy story. So a lot of people have their lives overturned, because of their involvement with with the process. And so yeah, I mean, fast forward to after that. So I'm not sure if the Albany chapter is still in existence, or the Toronto chapter honestly have lost touch with him. But, but so Robert Interxion was, was the core writer of the process, and his wife Marianne was, but she was the real power player in the whole thing. And she actually booted Robert, out of the process. At
Stephen Bradford Long 22:11 one point, yeah, she was kind of our behind the throne, wasn't she? Yeah.
William Morrison 22:15 And so so. So Lucien, and I were actually going to make a documentary about the process. But it was all predicated on getting an interview with Robert Grimson. And whooshing, spoken to his wife several times. But Robert, just would not budge, she wouldn't do it. And so, and the central thing about our documentary was, for my, I grew up in England. So, you know, the, I really, I do understand the sort of class structure there. And I think that Americans don't really understand how embedded that is in the culture. So Marianne, back in the 50s, was a prostitute in Glasgow, and in Scotland, so So Glasgow back in the day was a very hard task still is, but like, like back then it was, it was a hard, hard, hard town. And the members of the process were all middle middle, or upper class Englishmen. So I, my sort of sort of sense central thesis was that she took her her street smarts interviewee and use that to torture these English guys for the rest of their lives.
Stephen Bradford Long 23:27 Yeah, yeah.
William Morrison 23:28 Class Warfare. Really, really, that's what it was about? So to answer your original question, sorry to take me under for so long. But so what happened with the process was you had this core group of people that, you know, had created the whole thing, and then it blew up into this big institution. And the people at the center, where that's where the collapse happened, you know, they will, Marianne became this controlling figure. And, you know, there was a lot of sexual politics and all this stuff that was going on behind closed doors, and she was, you know, she was maniacal, and the way that she's, that's that she dealt with, with everybody and, and she just read these guys to shreds. And so, really, at that point, to me, there was, you know, Doug Grimson, was thrown out. But really Gibson's writings were to me the pillar of the process and the people that were the next generation of process. Ian's you know, were the people that that really took that value system and enacted it in reality, more so than that, the inner core,
Stephen Bradford Long 24:29 that's really interesting. And, you know, listening to you talk, and especially about kind of that reconciliation of opposites. So I, I relate so much to that, and especially kind of the reconciliation of Christ and Satan. Because I come from a Christian background, and I went through this long deconversion process. And you know, I was I was raised by an exorcist and I've talked about that elsewhere. My father is an exorcist. So kind of a crazy, crazy religious background, and went through this, you know, found out that I was gay and then went through this long deconversion process and still loving the image of Christ. The best parts of Christ not not believing that He was divine not believe but but loving the story of the God man loving that narrative. And still kind of feeling like it was a narrative that I could live my life by, even if I couldn't believe the central creeds of the church. But then feeling more and more like I couldn't have a home and Christianity and so I kind of started looking elsewhere. And then I discovered T S T. And, for me, T S, T is it represents very much that reconciliation of opposites, where I don't feel like within TST, I have to somehow purge my love of the symbol of Christ at all, you know, I feel like I, I feel like I have the freedom to love the symbol of Christ. And to really fucking resonate with the symbol of Satan and the in the middle, Tony and Satan. And and the way I've described it in the past is it's, I feel like a planet orbiting two stars, two different stars. And so it's almost like, sometimes I feel like I'm orbiting, sometimes it feels like I'm closer to Satan. Other times, it feels like I'm closer to Jesus. To me, it's almost like they're two symbolic brothers, representing two different ways of going about justice. So everything you're saying about, you know, the, the processes view of kind of the reconciliation of Satan and Jehovah and all that, all that stuff. I'm resonating with so much that that really clicked for me.
William Morrison 27:01 Yeah. And myself as well. I mean, I was raised Catholic and, and unlike a lot of Catholics, I had actually really great experience. Yeah, exactly,
Stephen Bradford Long 27:08 too. Yeah, I wasn't raised Catholic, but I almost converted.
William Morrison 27:12 Right? I learned to play guitar from a nun in the basement of Congress. That's great nun named sister Gertrude and she was pretty cantankerous, but that is awesome. You know, she, yeah, yeah. And, and, but the people in the church were great. And, you know, and I, when I was 16, I left. And there was some discussion, but nobody shamed me or give me a hard time about it, it was totally fine. And, you know, I think, you know, it's, and I liked the idea of Jesus as a rebel, as well as Satan. And I think that the two of them, you know, that would, they would probably, I always say that if Jesus Christ, the real Jesus Christ came back today, he probably would join his team.
Stephen Bradford Long 27:50 I 100% agree and, and, you know, when people are, and here's the thing, you know, I, I've been a religious writer, a religious blogger for over a decade now. And most of that has been writing about LGBT issues in Christianity. And that was kind of my niche, and, and then I left Christianity, you know, my faith fell apart. i My supernatural, my faith in the supernatural, and in a literal God fell apart. And I became an atheist, and I was kind of wandering, feeling really lonely, because I didn't feel like I could fit in the atheist world at all. Because I still, I still felt like a deeply religious person. You know, I, I still felt like, I, I yearned for religious community and religious symbol and structure and symbolism. Not because I was enslaved to it in any way, but just because I loved it. But I didn't, I couldn't find that in the atheist world, and I couldn't find what I needed fully in the church either. And so then I discovered TST, and people flipped the fuck out and what I've been trying and so I, I lost a lot of followers, I have which is to be expected, you know, I lost a lot of my followers. However, I will say they have been matched almost person to person by by Satanists, you know, say, and which is great, you know, my, my Patreon and my Twitter and is now flooded with Satanists, and they do make life much more fun. But what I what I try to tell people is, I have not changed. You know, the person, the person that you have been reading online for all these years has not changed. My principles haven't changed. I'm still the same person who loves justice who says Fuck you, too, you know, unjust and undue authority who still, you know, wants to burn down bullshit systems. I'm the exact same person it's just now they're Satan instead of Christ but but for me They are so similar symbolically. They they are almost I won't say they're identical because obviously they aren't. But they're very, very, very similar. So, so one question that I wanted to ask you. And of course, the moment I bring it up, it leaves my mind, let me see if it's in my notes here. So we hit on this, but we didn't really get into it. The process was the subject of a lot of witch hunts, and moral panic. And T S T, of course, inspires a similar level of fear. But, but it seems like that moral panic was, you know, for example, they were accused of being involved in the Son of Sam murders, and in the Manson murders and so on. And the damage was done, you know, the damage was was pretty intense, and it was probably contributed to the undoing of the process.
William Morrison 31:09 Do you get everything to do is the undoing of it? Yeah.
Stephen Bradford Long 31:12 Can you talk some about that? What What was it that about that witch hunt? That undid the process?
William Morrison 31:19 Well, I think, you know, it was just, it became like, a pocket. It's a whole different time, right? I mean, for us, it's a very different scenario, because we have a lot of support in the press, and a lot of major publications, like the Guardian, The New York Times, and you know, major publications have are really on our side and, and have been for quite a long time. And it's a different world. I mean, back then, you know, even sensationalism was kind of a new thing. And in the
Stephen Bradford Long 31:46 end, we would have been burned at the stake.
William Morrison 31:49 Right? Yeah, exactly. So I think that, you know, they, and also, you know, I mean, they, when I talk to members of process from that era, you know, they really do talk about how the fact that, you know, they kind of chuckle when they talk about it, but the whole black robe, and, you know, walking around with Alsatian dogs and all that kind of stuff probably wasn't the best idea.
Stephen Bradford Long 32:09 Think it was a great idea.
William Morrison 32:11 Well, I do too, but you know, like, again, it was a different era. Exactly, exactly. There was. So I think, I think really, it was a time and place thing. And I think that, that, you know, those missteps, and just, you know, the more I carry, and people like that, you know, taking advantage of that moments, for their own, you know, just for their own fame. And fortune, was really what was was the undoing of the process. And I think, I think also, when the hammer came down on them, I think it scared a lot of people and you know, you know, they're not evil doers, these are people that are trying to do good in the world. And all of a sudden, you know, they've got, you know, law enforcement in their face, and it's, it's all going horribly wrong. And I think a lot of people just were like, Okay, we need to step back from this at this point.
Stephen Bradford Long 33:02 Are you worried about anything like that happening with tst?
William Morrison 33:06 Well, we always talk about it. I mean, I think we're very careful. It's I was I was wanting to start at the LA chakra TSD. Way back when and, you know, the one thing that I always did, and granted, it was Los Angeles, so you know, it's very progressive place. But
Stephen Bradford Long 33:21 yeah, the satanists are probably the least weird thing walking down the street. Oh, yeah.
William Morrison 33:26 I mean, when we did the black mass and in, in LA, which was the biggest gathering of the TSDS ever had, we had 1500 People 1500 freaks.
Stephen Bradford Long 33:36 That's amazing. Oh, my God. Oh, that was incredible.
William Morrison 33:39 And then, you know, coven of ashes, which is this amazing group of women who I adore, in Los Angeles who do like real blood rituals came out and we had all of this stuff happen in this one night. I performed it with some of my friends as well. That's from skinny puppy and, and Ali Cola, because another amazing musician, and Ally and I were co chapters of TSG at that point, and, like, that just blew up like crazy. But you know, it's LA. So like, there's no problem. But the thing, we're doing protests. We did a we did a ritual in Lancaster, which is in the Antelope Valley, especially far from Los Angeles, extremely right wing Christian town. And, and we showed up at City Hall to deliver a copy and seven tenants and there was 200 protesters 30 Cops, and but the thing we always did was, I would always call the police department before we did a protest and talk to whoever the officer was in charge of, you know, dealing with these kinds of things. Tell them who we were, you know, and make sure that everybody knew exactly what was going on. And and really, that that's something that we really impress upon our membership is that you need to engage with law enforcement you need to get engaged with people that you know are there to protect you and, and, and make sure that that you know you that you solve those problems before they happen. And that's always worked really well for us. So it's, it's, you know, I think people understand where we're coming from, I think, you know, it's a different age. Sure, there's a lot of lightning Christians who want to kill us. But honestly, you know what, we're skinny puppy, like, the stuff that we did back in the day, like, we did a project in 2004 called the greater rung of the right, which was just basically a whole, you know, attack on the Bush administration. And we had scenes on stage where there was beheadings you know, and all this kind of stuff and, and, and of George Bush. And I think I've literally been getting I've been getting death threats for 25 years. Goodness. That's, that's just that's just part of my life. And
Stephen Bradford Long 35:49 yeah, yeah, I haven't I haven't gotten any death threats yet. But I've been getting, you know, all the other bullshit I've been getting, you know, we're, you're deceiving. You're deceiving everyone, you're going to hell, I'm praying for you, you piece of shit. And I'm like, That's great. You can pray for me all you want. Just just make sure it continues to be prayer and not anything else?
William Morrison 36:14 Well, I mean, my experience is and you know, I've had a lot of serious death threats over the years, and a lot of women in TST, especially in our group of female leadership, and all kinds of nasty stuff online. You know, a lot of that stuff is just, it's just words. And it is unfortunate. Yes. And I think, you know, one thing that's really been positive as the documentary Hill, Satan, since it's been released, has alley punch through the mainstream.
Stephen Bradford Long 36:40 Absolutely. I could not believe that. I could not believe the degree to which I felt like every, every week through the entire year on, you know, another major venue or another, you know, major news outlet was covering it really, favorably, it was just blowing my mind. Yeah. And
William Morrison 36:59 also, you know, thing I really enjoyed about that whole experience was watching some of the, you know, the coverage of the Q and A's that were happening. And you know, there was, you know, people in the audience who put up their hand and be like, I'm a Christian, I believe in Jesus Christ, but I'm going to donate to the Satanic Temple.
Stephen Bradford Long 37:16 Oh, that's great. Yeah, that's awesome. I got stuff like that, too. You know, I get stuff from progressive Christians who are like, Steven, I love what you're doing. I love the Satanic Temple. And I think you should keep doing it. It's really, it's really bizarre now, because like, my Christian friends are now gifting me like Baphomet things, or, or, you know, like, yeah, my Christians are buying me or buying me t shirts with Satan on it. It's just like, What a bizarre world. It's kind of beautiful. My My biggest patron on Patreon is a Lutheran minister, and he just thinks it's fantastic. It's so yeah, I'm so basic. So basically, what I'm hearing you say is a we live in a different time. And so what would have gotten TST, you know, murdered decades ago, now is a platform for us provides us a platform, but also that TST is just smarter about it. That that TST is it thinks through things in a way that maybe the process didn't, the process kind of felt like it was just winging everything? Well,
William Morrison 38:30 yeah. I mean, I think that's true. I think, I think I think the process was more of a personality called at the core of it. Sure. And it was, it wasn't really strategic. I mean, it was based on the Gibson's writings, for the most part. I mean, there was several people reading literature for the process, but I think the Crimson was really the anchor. And, and, you know, and that's a very different scenario than TST, where, you know, the process was not a politically active strategic cult, man anyway, really? Yeah. You know, it's, it's, you know, they were almost like a knee jerk reaction to the, you know, drop in, tune out, or whatever it was, you know, the sort of mantra of the 60s at that time. But so, I think, you know, that there was a, there was a bunch of people and a very small group of people really, that were trying to find themselves and define themselves in a time where, in that era, people felt like they had the freedom to do to do that. It's a very different vector than what TSP is. Yeah, you know, TSP is based in activism and creating a religion that speaks to the other and you know, and I think that that's it, there's very core differences, but there's also a lot of similarities in the way that we, you know, enact the religion and represent ourselves as
Stephen Bradford Long 39:53 well. Yeah, that's fantastic. Do you think that so you keep using the word cold and kind have more of a neutral way. Do you see the word cult as maybe more complicated than just completely evil?
William Morrison 40:08 Oh, yeah, for sure. I think that. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, I mean, I don't think I mean, in no way is GST a cult, but but the process? That's the label that they use for themselves, you know? So it's, it's, and I think, yeah, they were doing that that's what they described themselves as deviant psychotherapy called. There's a book by William Williamson has been banned Bainbridge we actually know. It's called Satan's power. And William was not, I wouldn't say he was technically a member of the process, but he was definitely embedded for a while. And so if you really want to know the whole history of the process, that's a book that you can, you can still find, there's copies of it on Amazon.
Stephen Bradford Long 40:49 That's awesome. I'll be hunting that down. Yeah. And especially after watching the documentary and talking to you, I'm going to be hunting down lots of literature on it, because I just, I just find it fascinating.
William Morrison 41:01 Yeah, well, you should, you should definitely look for copies of the magazines, because so you know, it a lot of publishing, so that you know, and the magazines were titled Love, sex, death, fear, and solution. And I years ago, I was just talking about the process magazines, which, which were really iconic. And that's one of the first things that Genesis showed me. And they were titled, love, sex, death and fear. And so, Lucien, Lucien, and I got in touch with a gentleman named Timothy Wiley, who was one of the original members of the process, and was living right off the grid in New Mexico. And we went and spent a weekend with him and recorded six hours of interviews, which I'm actually going to release pretty soon.
Stephen Bradford Long 41:47 Wait, that's amazing. So,
William Morrison 41:49 yeah, it's really, and it's, yeah, he is. He's an iconic character. And he actually wrote a book that Adam Carfrae published called love, sex, death and fear as well. And it's his whole, it's Chronicles Chronicles, his whole history of the process. Really good read, Timothy was a very interesting character. And the book is very much his perspective, as opposed to, I think other people's perspective, but it's a super entertaining.
Stephen Bradford Long 42:22 So what mistakes that did the process make that you feel like TST is learning or has learned from? You know, I feel like they the process probably made some massive mistakes and other religions and didn't, you know, it doesn't have just have to be the process, but What mistakes did the process make that you feel like TST is deliberately not making? Well, I
William Morrison 42:48 think with CSG, again, I think that the process at its core, again, was the personality calls. And I think that Marianne was very much the kind of orchestrated, orchestrated the demise of, of the organization. And, and then she went on to form Best Friends Animal Shelter in Utah after that. But, but with TSD, I mean, we early on, we created the National Council, which I was originally a member of. And, and we have, you know, and that's grown now to the International Council. So we there has always been checks and balances, in terms of the way that we operate. And, you know, I myself as a part and had a part in creating a lot of the original infrastructure, and rules and regulations for the way the TSP would work internally. I don't feel like the process really ever did that it was more of like, the Maryann being a dictator. And, and, you know, they were all I mean, everybody was fucking everybody in the process. And it was just, it was a big mess, you know, at the core so the court basically just dissolved and ended up with a lot of hurt feelings and that's TST is very official in the way that it operates at its core. And it's it's an organization you know, restructure Yeah, I don't really feel like the process out that
Stephen Bradford Long 44:12 Yeah. Yeah. So it's almost like we're trying to put in the checks and balances from the very get go so so that the the religion you know, this amazing new religious movement that we're part of called the Satanic Temple that has been so positive for so many of us won't just devolve into, you know, some kind of weird sex cult or something. Some some kind of satanic bloodletting sex cult, which I mean, granted, I might be really fucking into that, but still probably wouldn't be a good thing. Anyway,
William Morrison 44:49 yeah, I mean, I feel like UFC has a license for that kind of stuff as well. But at the same time, it's, it's, it's even if Lucien or Malcolm, you know, if if there was a big misstep up, there would be consequences for anybody. Yeah. And I'm sure there's been lots of mistakes. And we've learned a lot of things the hard way along the way, for sure. But, but, but there is checks and balances. And that's a that's a trend that's growing within the organization. That's good.
Stephen Bradford Long 45:19 And you know, one of the things that I do appreciate about TST is, you know, as a member, and I'm not, I'm not part of a chapter, I'm out here kind of a lone satanist and Appalachia, on the edge of pisco National Forest, just surrounded by cows and meth and whatnot. And Baptists. I am in Asheville, though so it's you know, Asheville is pretty, you know, crazy friendly.
William Morrison 45:43 Absolutely beautiful. Yeah,
Stephen Bradford Long 45:44 I love Yeah, I'm that. Yeah, I'm basically in Asheville. I'm in a town outside of Asheville, so it, it's gorgeous, and amazing and super witchy here, so I feel right at home. But one thing that I do love about TST is how I never, I've never felt like it is about Lucien it is it isn't about Lucian, it isn't about Malcolm, it isn't about any of the leaders, it's about the community, and it's about me as a member, and it's about the individual members and and I've always gotten that vibe from them. And that's one thing that I've really appreciated that, and I feel like I've heard Lucien say maybe say that maybe not exactly like that, like, you know, this isn't about him. This is about the community. It's about the people who are involved. And I just love that. I think that's great.
William Morrison 46:42 Yeah, I mean, Lucia has become a very famous guy. I've watched that happen to him, you know, from being a friend of mine. And, you know, I mean, we have been friends for so long. And he's one of my oldest friends. And, you know, and he's, I know, I know, for a fact that he really struggled with, you know, that, you know, at first they tried to, to have other people represent the temple. But the I mean, the thing about Lucien is he's legit brilliant human being. Yes. So well read, you know, and, and he's, he's, you know, he's a good person, and he never wanted to have the limelight at all. But I think that he realized at one point that, that if, you know, somebody had somebody had to step up and represent in sample properly, and be able to navigate those waters, and he was the guy that had the mental chops to be able to do that. So he just kind of accepted that rule. But I am pretty sure that like, yes, you know, he really is, he's a legit genius. And I think that, you know, given if there was any other opportunity for him not to be in the limelight, he would he would take it. Sure, I'm sure you are.
Stephen Bradford Long 47:49 Sure. So I kind of want to take the last few minutes here to talk about this new project. We've alluded to it. Because, yep, Sympathy for the Devil is on tst. TV, but talk some about what TST TV is, because it's I think it's a really cool concept of, and kind of the broader goal of what it's trying to accomplish.
William Morrison 48:13 Absolutely. So this was something that Lucien and I talked about, a couple of years ago, really, it took a long time for us to really get things up and running. We originally had been approached by a entity called V space, which hosts all kinds of esoteric programming, ghost hunting shows and things like that, and they had offers for us to channel on their space. And we, after long discussions have worked out an agreement with them. But as as the whole relationship developed, realize that they didn't really have the technology that we needed to represent ourselves the way that we wanted to. So we sort of went off on our own at that point. But the original idea with Tse, is that, you know, I know that Lucien and I both feel really strongly about this about the the quote unquote, Facebook echo chamber. And yeah, with the forum on Facebook, with GST, there's so much problem, problematic behavior, especially with the explosive growth of the organization. And, and I My background is primarily as a filmmaker and, and, you know, I've produced a lot of television for most of the major networks in the UK and Canada. And, and so we started talking about this idea of the streaming network and as a as a means to create a platform where we could have real time conversations with the membership and have there's so much creativity within your organization as well and give a platform for people to be able to express themselves in a way where, you know, it wasn't Facebook. It's absolutely it's, you know, and and so the programming that we've been starting to create, and we'll continue to, is really based on two way communication And so, you know, the idea that people are contentious with tsp or that, you know, we have issues like there's always a huge raging debate going on with CEOs, for instance. So we're, we're purchasing one of our main
Stephen Bradford Long 50:13 pool for the people in the back CEOs Church of Satan. Okay, go on. Yes. Churches.
William Morrison 50:18 Yeah. So, so so, you know, we, you know, our leadership will say online things like, well, we respect Anton the way and he, you know, and what he brought to Satanism. And then, you know, the Facebook forum will explode with people hating on to CEOs and all that kind of stuff, church and Satan. And so, the first, the first show that we launched is called the devil's dispatch. And that's our bi weekly new show, that is hosted by Studio Han, and Jack Matejko,
Stephen Bradford Long 50:49 who is a multiple sacred tension guest, by the way, so people who remember Jack mochiko, you should go check him out on devils dispatch.
William Morrison 51:00 And also he has another show on Tuesday called an ongoing and necessary pursuit, which is his own interview show, which is really good, too. Yeah. Agreed. So, so we haven't, we have an episode of The Devil's dispatch coming up, which is going to be engaging directly with the Church of Satan. I think it's going to be really interesting. Yes. There's a Swedish filmmaker is Swedish don't make her name, call Abramson. And Carl made a great documentary about Anton and there's a lot of footage of the people have never seen events on the day, and it's a feature length documentary, and we're gearing up to release that at the same time. So I think it's going to have a lot of people running into the old screaming and tearing up their hair, but that's okay.
Stephen Bradford Long 51:41 That's fine.
William Morrison 51:46 So yeah, I mean, the whole concept of the platform was to create a very interactive, and no holds barred, you know, world where statements can express themselves. Yeah. So it's, it's really in its nascent stage, I'm really working on a lot of acquisitions right now. And trying to, you know, I want to I want the station to become the center point of, you know, of media and historically and in the present that's related to Satanism, so that people have access to all that material. And, and but we're, we're launching shows all the time. Chicago is about to launch an amazing show called the heretics of Casitas, which is a live d&d interactive show where
Stephen Bradford Long 52:29 it'll be so much fun. I can't wait.
William Morrison 52:32 Oh, I know. Yeah. And also, they're going to allow the audience to participate in the decision making in terms of what the moves that are made within the game, and so on and so forth. I'm working on launching a new show called flesh, which has been on the books for a long time. And flesh, it's going to be a Colin show, which is all about satanic sexuality, which, of course, encompasses the whole world of, you know, of sexuality within our organization. Obviously, we have, yeah, and that's one of the beautiful things about DSD is diversity in terms of, you know, gender identifications, and our huge trans populace and all that stuff is going to be part of that. So we're going to we're going to be and also it's going to be super fun and naughty, because we can do whatever we want with this platform. We're going to be looking to engage users in any way that they like.
Stephen Bradford Long 53:29 Fantastic. Yeah, so. So TST did like this big launch for the streaming service on Halloween. And I was watching some of it and my partner got really bored because he was like, Man, there isn't any nudity or sex rich, like satanic sexual rituals or anything like, this is really boring. And I'm like, Just wait, baby, I'm sure. I'm sure it's coming at some point.
William Morrison 53:59 It is totally coming. So the naughty part of Satanism will be on TSD very soon. And also, we're going to we're going to there's a private Facebook group called Trans satanic. Yeah. Which I before I opted out, because I'm serious. But I got to watch that group explode into 500 members in a week.
Stephen Bradford Long 54:22 Nice. Very nice. That's amazing. Yeah. So we have such a huge LGBT population. It's great.
William Morrison 54:29 Totally. Yeah, it's amazing. And so we're gonna we're gonna actually create a series called Trans Atlantic, which will be a probably a bi weekly or weekly series, not sure yet, which is by and for the trans community, current events, news and just like in depth, look into trends, culture as well. So really excited about that.
Stephen Bradford Long 54:48 That's awesome. I'm so excited. And you know, there's just so much I think, what excites me so much about being part of TST and, you know, we all contribute it in our own way. And you know, I feel like I do what I can to contribute to the culture by, you know, just writing blogs and talking to people like you on a podcast. And I'm not in any official capacity, but just cultivating kind of spaces for conversation. And then what excites me so much about being part of this community is that it's still a new religious movement, which means that we can kind of shape the religion that we want to see. And, yeah, you know, we're building this new thing. And that, to me, is just so exciting. So I'm super excited to see where this platform is going to go. And the new shows that are coming out on tst. TV, I think it's going to be absolutely amazing.
William Morrison 55:49 Yeah, I'm super excited as well. And, you know, just so people are aware, we, you know, we're open to ideas, in terms of development for the for the platform as well. And it's, it's, you know, TSE has primarily been a volunteer organization up to this point. But with, with tstv, it's, it's we do a 5050 profit share with any content creators. So if there's people out there that have solid ideas, I definitely encourage them to get in touch with us. And
Stephen Bradford Long 56:17 we're sure, yeah, for sure. So content creators, maybe your Yeah, if whatever sort of content you do, if, if it's Satan or Satan, adjacent, be sure to reach out to William Morrison, and maybe he can, he'll check it out. All righty. Well, is there anything else? Is there anything we missed in this conversation that you wished we touched on?
William Morrison 56:42 I don't think so. No, I think we covered it pretty well.
Stephen Bradford Long 56:44 Great. Great, fantastic. Now, so where can people find tst? TV?
William Morrison 56:51 This satanic temple.tv.
Stephen Bradford Long 56:53 Great. Yeah. So and satanic temple.com, of course, is the main website and then satanic, the satanic temple.tv Is the streaming service. And for people who might have ideas for shows or content, where do they submit that to?
William Morrison 57:10 They can there's a link actually on the homepage. So if you go to that you can do you can click on that and, and that email will get sent out to us and we can review the submissions or the ideas.
Stephen Bradford Long 57:20 Fantastic. All right. Well, William, it has been so much fun LIS talking to you. And maybe we can do this again sometime. Absolutely. Thank you very much. My pleasure. All right. Well, that is it for this show. As usual, the music is by the jelly rocks, and 11 D 711. D sevens new album. Basic glitches is out on iTunes Spotify or wherever you listen to music be sure to download it and enjoy it. The artwork is by Rama Krishna Das The show is edited produced recorded and written by me Steven Bradford long and it is a production of rock candy recordings we're going to close with a song from basic glitches and as always Hail Satan and thanks for listening we ready right jacked up evening is next to them