The Satanic Temple - Facts And Fiction

A lot of people in the "conspiracy" or "truther" community are devout Christians. I see a recurring theme of blaming Satanism and "The Occult" for various events that take place. This led me down a rabbit hole. I spent quite a bit of time and effort researching Satanism, Satan worship, and devil worship. I decided to get the information straight from the horse's mouth. I reached out to The Satanic Temple, and the chapter heads in AZ were kind enough to spend some time with me in exploring what Satanism is all about.

**DISCLAIMER**
I am not a Satanist. I am an agnostic atheist. I respect everyone else's beliefs as long as they do not infringe on other's freedom or well being.
youtu.be...

The full-on end-all truth about The Church of Satan (May God Rest its Soul).



Sorry.

a reply to: Winstonian

Was a good interview, nice work. Um, I mean.....Oooh bad...satan baaaaad or something like that.

This "religion" has many different facets and is kind of practiced in different ways with slightly varying ideals. The core seems to stay the same from the research I have done. It's nice and a bit fun to delve into different belief styles and systems.

Quick question. They went into detail of denying and supernatural force but proudly accept wiccans, majik users and such. Kind of a contradiction or did I miss the meat of that part of the conversation?

a reply to: JinMI

They went into detail of denying and supernatural force but proudly accept wiccans, majik users and such. Kind of a contradiction or did I miss the meat of that part of the conversation?

That was in the different types of membership part of the discussion. Some Wiccans are left hand path (non spiritualist, non theistic).

Plus, if you read the tenets, I think they could actually be lived up to by a rather broad spectrum of people.

Seven Fundamental Tenets
•One should strive to act with compassion and empathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason.
•The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
•One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
•The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo your own.
•Beliefs should conform to our best scientific understanding of the world. We should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit our beliefs.
•People are fallible. If we make a mistake, we should do our best to rectify it and resolve any harm that may have been caused.
•Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word

a reply to: pthena

Thanks for the brief clarification. I'll have to listen to it again when I get a few. I missed the left hand path too apparently.

It's clear that their cause is far from evil (and their style is beautiful!).

Now this is a separation from the LeVeyan "version" of satanic belief correct?

The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth[edit]
1.Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.
2.Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them.
3.When in another’s lair, show them respect or else do not go there.
4.If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat them cruelly and without mercy.
5.Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.
6.Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and they cries out to be relieved.
7.Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.
8.Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.
9.Do not harm little children.
10.Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food.
11.When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask them to stop. If they do not stop, destroy them.

en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: JinMI

Now this is a separation from the LeVeyan "version" of satanic belief correct?

Correct. The LeVeyan "version" is called The Church of Satan. If I'm correct, the Temple split off before LeVey died. The Temple tenets sound better to me than the Church tenets.

I'm not either one so, I'm sure someone will show up eventually with more accurate answers.

ETA

My basic take from the interview would be: It's for people who aren't necessarily anti-religion, but rather anti-superstition, anti-spirituality, anti-all light all the time pretending such is possible. So "In the Light" people wouldn't fit in in my opinion and neither would the "I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual" crowd. That's just my opinion from what I gather from the interview, plus my own prejudices.

a reply to: pthena

Excellent. I enjoy these threads!

Religions are no more than deified concepts usually given names and a character with mythologies about the character who is described physically (usually) and interacts with humans at times. Sometimes different gods are symbolic of different concepts and other times every concept comes from one entity who is all powerful.

Satan looks like a goat because of the Greek god Pan and his popularity in the Roman Empire. It was decided that Satan would be depicted as and associated with the goat, and it has worked.

Judaism has Azazel as the angel associated with the goat and a tradition of sacrificing a goat on the day of atonement to him, according to the Torah. It's clear from the Book of Enoch that Azazel is not Satan so the goat being associated with Satan is purely Christian and Samael is usually given as the name of the Satan of man who is the angel of death, tempter and accuser of man at the direction of God himself. His appearance is too terrifying to describe but he is said to have eyes all over.

So if people want to adopt a fictitious version of a Jewish angel who is symbolic and not an enemy of God who is at war with humanity and responsible for all evil on earth I don't care because he isn't real.

If they want to play devil worship and curse God but not a actually hurt anyone I think it is fine, rebellion can be a good thing and healthy.

When you get into human sacrifice and actual worship of unspeakable evil of all kinds and practice of evil in the name of Satan or God is where I draw the line.

LeVay santanism isn't what you've read about in the bible. It's night and day. What you're looking at is the worship of self instead of any kind of deity or anti-deity.


Christians look down on the devil. It makes sense because it's the black to their white. It's what they're supposed to do. I mean, it comes in the package. It's built in and it's supposed to be that way. It's the sugar to their tank of gas. However, LeVay Satanism isn't the same thing though it kind of falls in to that 7 deadly sins thing. It's related in the way that it's a sin to act that way and possibly persuaded by the devil to act that way. I mean, any unbelief is potential persuasion by satan in a Christian's mind. That's what LeVay'ism is. It's the lack of belief but at the same time it's the worship of one's self, which they call satan. Satan is that inner you.

It's kind of comparative to some old beliefs. Didn't Judaism believe that satan was just your evil side?

a reply to: Malocchio

Cool. So you didn't listen the the interview?

a reply to: JinMI

Nah. I just blindly commented what I wanted and I didn't watch the video because I didn't want to. I was not terribly interested in the satanic temple and find it rather silly.

Satanism is so juvenile, for rebellious teens with over bearing parents and dissapointing lives.

I am happy and don't need to worship or revere the concept of Satan as I can rebel without kissing Satan's ass and satisfy the same urge.

My life kicks ass.

originally posted by: pthena
a reply to: JinMI

Now this is a separation from the LeVeyan "version" of satanic belief correct?

Correct. The LeVeyan "version" is called The Church of Satan. If I'm correct, the Temple split off before LeVey died. The Temple tenets sound better to me than the Church tenets.

I'm not either one so, I'm sure someone will show up eventually with more accurate answers.

ETA

My basic take from the interview would be: It's for people who aren't necessarily anti-religion, but rather anti-superstition, anti-spirituality, anti-all light all the time pretending such is possible. So "In the Light" people wouldn't fit in in my opinion and neither would the "I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual" crowd. That's just my opinion from what I gather from the interview, plus my own prejudices.

I'm a member of The Satanic Temple. I'll bring some clarification.

Anton LaVey wrote the Satanic Bible in the 60s and is what led to the creation of what we know today as Church of Satan or LaVeyan Satanism. CoS is a little more volatile when it comes to trolling those of the RHP. CoS is atheist, however, they talk of magic and ritual but it's labeled as nothing more than psychodrama.

The Satanic Temple was created in 2013 with the main goal of maintaining secular law in government and promoting religious freedom. TST puts more focus on using their Satanic image to remind people that we do not live in a theocracy. TST is also the only Satanic religion that is recognized as a legitimate religion by the US government having been granted tax exemption status. And just like CoS, TST is atheist.

There's been a fair bit of beef between CoS and TST. You can read the "fact sheet" as presented by CoS about TST and TST's lead man Lucien Greaves "correcting" said fact sheet here: luciengreaves.com...

Personally, I originally got into Satanism as most people do, through the Satanic Bible. I was a LaVeyan Satanist for a couple of years until The Satanic Temple started gaining traction. After looking into their mission and really diving into their seven tenets, I found that TST spoke to me on a different level than CoS and I liked it better.

If you have any questions, I can try and answer them. I'm not the best at articulating things, but I can certainly try and provide answers or links to where you can find the answers.

ETA: Hulu has a pretty decent docu on TST called "Hail Satan?"

a reply to: Echo3Foxtrot

I had totally forgotten about this thread.
So I wrote,
"I'm sure someone will show up eventually with more accurate answers."
in Sept 2016.

Right on time.

Last night I had a sudden urge to listen to:

A clear indication that now would be a good time for contemplation as opposed to embarking on anything "... with a vengeance."

Thank you.
I will chill and review what I know and think I know.

a reply to: pthena

Oh crap. I didn't see the date of the original post!

a reply to: Echo3Foxtrot

That's quite alright. This thread seems to be a calmer atmosphere than that other thread.

I've watched a little over half of the documentary. I turned it off when I noticed my granddaughter watching. Rated R and all.

•The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo your own.

I guess like all things, balance is important when it comes to offending. I'll have to think about that.

a reply to: pthena

This was one of those rare threads. I followed Satanism for awhile.

Came to the conclusion that is absolute hedonism. Which is less about a deity and much more about selfishness. However that doesn't encompass all of it of course.

a reply to: JinMI

The only type of hedonism I ever studied was Epicureanism which borders on the down right ascetic.

Not all hedonisms are the same. See:

Ethical hedonism is the view that combines hedonism with welfarist ethics, which claims that what we should do depends exclusively on what affects the well-being of individuals. Ethical hedonists would defend either increasing pleasure and reducing suffering for all beings capable of experiencing them; or just reducing suffering, in the case of negative consequentialism and negative utilitarianism.
en.wikipedia.org...

The way I see it is I don't think I'd be able to garb up and say "Hail Satan!" but maybe somebody should do it.

That majority religion privilege is real in the U.S..

viva la resistance

a reply to: pthena

It's interesting, well was to me. "How can I help anyone if I'm not in a position to help, so help myself first."

a reply to: JinMI

"How can I help anyone if I'm not in a position to help, so help myself first."

From the interviews in the "Hail Satan?" documentary, it was like people joining a "Me Too" movement. Help through sympathy.