June 28, 2024
The New Heretics Stream (6/28/24)
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- [WE LIVE IN HELL] The Satanic Panic is still alive in Idaho (“Sheriff’s office arrests man on child pornography charges, specifies he’s a TST member, then removes it”)
- [SNAKE OIL] TST takes credit for another unrelated case in Oklahoma (“Republican AG’s challenge of religious charter schools validated by state Supreme Court, but it didn’t involve Satanic Temple”)
- [SNAKE OIL] TST pushes its new merch off promises of offering credits in Okla. schools (“Oklahoma will be the first state to offer school credit for The Satanic Temple’s religious and morality classes”)
- [PERMANENT SHITTENING] Doug Misicko’s anti-Satanic Panic pet project in disarray (“Grey Faction head Evan Anderson publicly resigns”)
The Satanic Panic is still alive in Idaho
Sheriff’s office arrests man on child pornography charges, specifies he’s a TST member, then removes it
TST takes credit for another unrelated case in Oklahoma
Republican AG’s challenge of religious charter schools validated by state Supreme Court but it didn’t involve Satanic Temple
If you are someone who is on The Satanic Temple’s press release list, you are almost certainly getting net negative information from them.
The news article by the Washington Post quotes Oklahoma Attorney Gentner Drummond who had been the one opposing the nation’s first taxpayer-funded, state-sponsored religious public charter school in his state.
“This decision is a tremendous victory for religious liberty. The framers of the U.S. Constitution and those who drafted Oklahoma’s Constitution clearly understood how best to protect religious freedom: by preventing the State from sponsoring any religion at all. Now Oklahomans can be assured that our tax dollars will not fund the teachings of Sharia Law or even Satanism. While I understand that the Governor and other politicians are disappointed with this outcome, I hope that the people of Oklahoma can rejoice that they will not be compelled to fund radical religious schools that violate their faith.”
June 25, 2024
So, there’s something there, but the victory lap The Satanic Temple took about this is a bit of a stretch given just how many other religious traditions and business cults the attorney general name-dropped earlier in the year to explain his opposition.
Drummond has been steadfast in his opposition to taxpayer-funded religion. He has said that U.S. Supreme Court precedent requires equal treatment of religions, which means if Oklahoma funds a Catholic charter school like St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Catholic Charter School, then the state would also be forced to fund a radical Islamic charter school and a Scientology school.
“Today, Oklahomans are being compelled to fund Catholicism. Because of the legal precedent created by the Board’s actions, tomorrow we may be forced to fund radical Muslim teachings like Sharia law,” Drummond said upon filing the lawsuit last October.
Drummond notes that very scenario has played out in the Iowa state capitol building, where the display of a Christian nativity scene forced the government to also display a Satanic homage to the pagan god Baphomet.
“That is the direction we are heading, and it is wrong on every level,” said Drummond. “I for one do not want my tax dollars funding the teaching of radical Sharia law or the blasphemous tenets of the Church of Satan.”
The Attorney General has taken criticism from Gov. Kevin Stitt on the issue. Unlike Drummond, Gov. Stitt has stated he is supportive of a taxpayer-funded Muslim charter school.
“The Governor of course is free to support the establishment and funding of a Muslim charter school if he wants, but as a committed Christian, I take deep offense to that position,” said Drummond. “I am doing everything in my power to protect our tax dollars and preserve our religious liberty.”
Despite counsel from the Attorney General that the proposed St. Isidore of Seville charter school would violate the state constitution, board members voted 3-2 to approve the application by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa. Drummond filed the lawsuit in October, noting the state Constitution expressly prohibits “sectarian control” of public schools. The litigation also argues that St. Isidore, which supporters have vowed would be “Catholic in every way,” impinges on religious liberty by violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
April 1, 2024
TST is one of those examples Drummond gives, but the “Church of Satan” would have worked just as well if he needed to bring up Satanists, and he started off with open hostility to Islam, as well.
Unsurprisingly (and mercifully), beyond those press release statements, TST doesn’t appear to have come up in the case itself at all.
Majority opinion:
TST pushes its new merch off promises of offering credits in Okla. schools
Oklahoma will be the first state to offer school credit for The Satanic Temple’s religious and morality classes
Less important than whether there actually is an Oklahoma chapter/congregation anymore, or if any real action will take place to follow through on it, the point is that TST co-owner Cevin Soling’s hatred of public schools not only gets another opportunity to express itself, he gets to make a buck of it at the same time.
The credits may never actually materialize, because that would involve real work, but TST will definitely take the money of any rubes who want to pay them.
Doug Misicko’s anti-Satanic Panic pet project in disarray
Grey Faction head Evan Anderson publicly resigns
Many key figures and whole organizations have dropped out of The Satanic Temple following Doug “Lucien Greaves” Misicko’s recent turn into more open authoritarian and demands for slavish devotion above all else. That continued this week as well but this time it involved one of Misicko’s longtime and favorite projects, arguably his entire reason for starting this whole thing back in 2012. At least, that was what he was willing to admit while Cevin Soling was paying Misicko’s friend Shane Bugbee to promote them in Vice.
In 2009, I went to a “Ritual Abuse/Mind-Control” conference in Connecticut where I listened to “experts” elaborate upon their beliefs in Satanic Ritual crimes. I thought they would be a fringe grouping of delusional people holding firmly to incredible beliefs, hurting nobody but themselves. What I found instead was a twisted subculture of licensed therapists, and their clients, who subscribe to a pseudoscientific belief in “dissociative amnesia”: The theory that some events—particularly sexual abuse—can be so uniquely traumatic that the conscious mind cannot comprehend it, and thus those memories are “repressed.” This school of “therapy” breeds conspiracy theory and literally indoctrinates clients into false beliefs in a Satanic threat. Clients are encouraged to “remember” episodes of abuse that are presumed to have been concealed from their conscious minds, and when the evidence doesn’t match their confabulatory false memories, they explain it away as evidence of a much larger conspiracy—a Satanic conspiracy. With the false veneer of science, these “experts” in dissociation have kept a witch-hunt alive. Innocent people have been convicted and imprisoned on the “evidence” of recovered memory testimony, even though this is the exact same “evidence” we have for alien abduction, and is the same “therapeutic” process by which people practice “past life regression.” I have a long and complex body of writing, much of which can be read at www.process.org, where I detail in a number of articles how this cult-like therapy subculture continues to ruin the lives of innocent people. So one of my own goals is to destroy this harmful pseudoscientific practice, and dispel the myth of an international Satanic conspiracy. The broader goal of the Satanic Temple in general is to advocate for all of those who are unjustly maligned, demonized, or marginalized—victimized by conspiracy theorists and dogmatic supernaturalists. We seek to assert the rights of religious non-believers and skeptics. We also hope to provide the philosophical framework by which our membership may hone their cognitive tools and never fall victim to those forces.
Doug Misicko (as “Doug Mesner”) for Vice‘s “Unmasking Lucien Greaves, Leader of the Satanic Temple” (July 30, 2013)
However, since 2018, this project has been led by Evan Anderson, and that ended this week.
I have resigned from The Satanic Temple and am no longer the Campaign Director for Grey Faction.
I became Campaign Director in late 2018 and am enormously proud of the work I have done alongside Grey Faction’s dozens of volunteers. Together we have revoked licenses of malpracticing therapists, successfully removed continuing education credits from academic presentations which promoted pseudoscience and conspiracism, helped victims of bad therapy regain their sense of self, and prevented would-be victims from falling into the clutches of irresponsible and misguided clinicians. I hope that Grey Faction will continue this work in my absence.
Before I say anything else, I want to make one thing crystal clear. During my time as Campaign Director, Grey Faction had near-complete autonomy. We were never told what to say, nor were we told not to say something. I believe this freedom made us more effective than we otherwise would have been. I’m very thankful for that, and it’s a big reason I stayed for as long as I did.
I’m resigning because of hypocrisy within TST. There is no longer even a pretense of following the tenets. I could list the tenets and the ways I believe Executive Ministry has violated them, but that would be tedious. I will instead underscore my favorite one – Tenet VII. It says: “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.” Ask yourself, is the way that EM (and let’s be honest, Lucien in particular) talks to members and ministry noble? Is it compassionate, wise, or just? Reading Lucien’s communication with others over these past few weeks, the only quality that comes through loud and clear is utter contempt. It pervades every word. I cannot imagine talking to other people this way. And watching people dutifully fall in line by proudly declaring themselves “nobodies” is nothing short of heartbreaking. You are not a “nobody,” and you do not need to think of yourself as a “nobody” in order to be part of something greater than yourself.
It’s a tired pattern that has played out over and over again for years. Lucien says or does something that people within TST dislike. In the face of criticism, he rushes to Patreon to publish the official account of events for his fans to accept without question. The post unfailingly features a pointed doubling-down of whatever originally upset people, replete with inflammatory, polarizing, us-vs-them rhetoric. More people within TST express disapproval of Lucien’s reactionary tendencies, the importance of which far outweighs the original “offense,” and which Lucien painstakingly avoids addressing. Rinse and repeat.
The explicit, unmistakable top-down edict from Lucien is that anybody who dares to criticize his words and actions is unwelcome in TST. He is infallible. This declaration has emboldened a mob who will expel anyone who expresses the slightest hesitation to join the emerging Cult of Lucien. This has fostered a culture of paranoia and witch-hunting which is heralding the end of TST as a functioning community. The TST that exists today is not the TST that I was so enthusiastic about joining. I don’t think EM wanted a community. But they ended up with one. And now it’s being culled.
Why am I resigning now? Weeks ago I made a promise that I would not leave unless and until TST’s decompensation reached a point in which it became too much of a distraction for me to continue as Campaign Director. Unfortunately, it has reached that point. How could I honestly lead Grey Faction in speaking out against witch-hunts when such a witch-hunt is currently dominating TST? How could I warn of the dangers of a mob mentality while TST itself is enveloped in one? How could I continue this work while I wait for them to target me, and find any excuse they deem plausible enough to kick me out as they have so many others? You can’t have a community without trust and mutual respect, and sadly these qualities have evaporated from TST’s culture. I cannot work in such an environment.
I could have spoken out sooner, and maybe I should have. But I knew that doing so meant resigning, and I wasn’t ready to resign.
I don’t know what will happen to Grey Faction. There is a good chance the website will disappear. To anybody remaining with the campaign, I beg you to do what you can to keep the website running. We have been told by multiple people that the website saved their life. I don’t know if there is anyone left in TST that is up for leading the campaign. I hope there is, and I hope they do a fantastic job. I will make myself available to help with the transition.
I still believe in TST’s mission and I want to see it succeed. I want Grey Faction to continue to do good work and fight against Satanic Panic in mental health. But my conscience will not permit me to be part of it any longer.
Best of luck,
Evan
Amy Ramos’ statement is even more blatant in calling what has happened a witch hunt.
A Heartfelt Letter from Grey Faction Leadership
Over the past four years, I have been proud to lead and contribute to GF’s mission, supporting others and working with dedicated individuals.
However, recent developments within The Satanic Temple (TST) have made it untenable for me to continue my association with TST. The increasing atmosphere of paranoia and the frank mistreatment of members have led me to this difficult decision.
Grey Faction is a beautiful campaign, and the volunteer members of it have protected the interests of Satanists by informing the general public on the risks of conspiracism. It has supported victims of therapeutic mistreatment, provided information, and connected interested parties. We have formed alliances with documentarians, journalists, ethics boards, and collaborated on numerous protective projects.
Without organizations like Grey Faction, victims of iatrogenic therapy at the hands of organizations like the ISSTD, who still practice in these dangerous ways, are at risk. Although I cannot say what comes next for Grey Faction, I know that this mission isn’t over, and that our intentions are to move forward into therapeutic advocacy away from a culture of dogmatic conspiracism – something Grey Faction stands for at its core.
I ignored a lot for the sake of the campaign. I no longer can. I can recognize a witch hunt, a budding culture of paranoia and conspiracism.
One way that abusive therapists will engender dependency is by telling you that it has to get much worse before it gets better. It doesn’t.
Amy
And just for fun, people were sharing this relevant new caption for an ancient meme around.
The Satanic Temple's Boogeyman
Queer Satanic
TST sued us from April 2020 to September 2024, and we are still here.
