The Satanic Temple

May 17, 2024

The Satanic Temple and its Eternal Nobodies

A wave of individual departures

Head of TST Ministry Greg Stevens pushed out

So, in the middle of week two of all this, it came out that The Satanic Ministry memes were not the root cause of all this. If you follow their explanations down all the way, the people to blame are, well, us.

In the Satanists Nextdoor interview, they talk pretty openly about how co-host Lilin Lavin took a bunch of screenshots of TST Ministers talking to each other and snitched on them to Misicko for being too negative and disrespectful about Misicko and Soling.

But this is apparently a pretty widespread practice, and the Temple is very serious about catching you interacting with its version of Suppressive Persons too cordially.

But Greg Stevens did not remove this Minister — despite the screenshots! — so of course Stevens had to go. You can’t have regular folks in your religion just interacting with the former members of your religion who are targets of your ongoing litigation, can you?

Daniel Walker of the Black Mass Appeal podcast (as u/SSF145) shared a pair of quotes from Misicko that mirrored this while being slightly more circumspect:

Although the source of the quotes wasn’t identified outright; a guess would be that it’s from Misicko’s “Notes from Satanistan 20 May 2024” on his Lucien Greaves Patreon; a Google search for the phrase points to a paid Substack post of the same title.

It seems reasonable that the phrase “an organization that is expressly dedicated to undermining and destroying TST” would be QueerSatanic here, but we are four people TST has been suing since April 2020, and you can’t really join on to that as a member.

Basically, Misicko and TST loyalists continue to treat us as their useful boogeyman where we are so deeply dangerous, contagion actually travels not just from direct contact but levels of indirect contact, too.

Of course, Misicko also had said on that Satanists Nextdoor podcast that he was trying to push Stevens out “for a while”.

While we had removed the two hosts’ contributions from the transcript previously, to say they exist to be “yes-men” is just straight up literally descriptive, not pejorative, so here they are in-full for flavor.

For all this, you have to wonder whether Greg Stevens was just pushed out because The Satanic Temple’s Ministry program was starting to be obviously more loyal to him than to Misicko.

That seems to be a pattern with TST, too, Misicko expelling anyone who has a too-large profile or power independent of him. The first wave of Satanists brought in to TST to sell it as a legitimate Satanic org did their time — Brian Werner, Shane Bugbee, Zach Black — and then got pushed out. Then Jex Blackmore, Ash Astaroth, and Cara Jeanne did their time, and now are treated like they never existed.

It’s also why Misicko’s romantic partners are such good candidates for promotion. If they break up with him (or vice versa), they lose everything in TST, which can be even more significant if their careers, social support network, and whole life has been built around that.

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Lanzifer Longinus

While some of the “Internal Nobodies” might be relevant only to those in-the-know about TST, some of the names speaking out were much more prominent and public-facing.

“Lanzifer Eligos Longinus”, known for giving a TST invocation in San Marcos in 2023, appearing in Penny Lane’s “Hail Satan?” film, and generally being a reliable horse-boy for TST was one of them.

Misicko has had a tendency for some years to do that Trumpian thing where he claims, “This is criticism coming from people who I have no idea who they are and have never even met me,” eliding the fact that since TST started, Misicko has wrapped up most such people in contracts with non-disparagement clauses to keep the quiet.

Well, Misicko can’t claim he doesn’t know Longinus.

It would end with Misicko explaining that Longinus, too, was some nobody, despite all of the press he’d generated, invocations, and prominent place in TST’s major propaganda film, and more than that, Misicko didn’t even especially care for Longinus.

This thread was during the first wave of responses on May 11 that had broken out into the public. But not all of them were (initially) fully public.

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Dex Desjardins

“Dex Desjardins” was as recently as this time last year its “Media Relations Specialist” seemingly being groomed to take over a more prominent spokesperson role for TST, coming up from TST Albany as chapter head and media liaison.

Dex Desjardins and Chalice Blythe

Actually, let’s give the full description here from Desjardins’ own bio.

But since last summer, something changed, perhaps with Desjardins suffering in reprisal to his reaction to last year’s big schism over Misicko remaining friends with noted transphobe and reactionary atheist David Silverman.

Back then, Desjardins openly expressed frustration (“His [Misicko’s] response was abysmal. Like an angry 7 year old. I honestly wish he’d retire and start enjoying life already”), and Desjardins said that thing that directly contradicts Misicko’s whole point (“TST is not Lucien Greaves… We are what makes TST what it is”). Remember, Misicko says, “No, I am TST, and if you don’t like it, get out.”

So Lanzifer Longinus reposted something Desjardins had said as a Facebook comment, both publicly to Twitter (in the most inconvenient way) and semi-publicly to Facebook prior to May 13.

Of course, the characterization that Misicko is a liability to TST is only true if you see TST as having any larger mission than fueling Misicko’s ego and livelihood, and Misicko himself is telling you to stop making that characterization.

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Chalice Blythe

To jump ahead a bit in the timeline, “Chalice Blythe” — Desjardin’s partner, but more importantly, former Utah chapterhead and spokesperson for the Temple’s religious reproductive rights campaign, among other roles — also seemed to be irritated by all of this but waited about two weeks from the Satanists Nextdoor debacle before announcing May 26 she was dipping out.

Interestingly, this was the same day as a planned livestream for The Satanic Temple TV: “Unintended Doctrine – Opinions Weaponized as Canon.”

"Unintended Doctrine - Opinions Weaponized as Canon" by Minister Chalice Blythe (26 May 2024 1000 to 1100 UTC)

Someone who has watched this would have to confirm whether the actual content of that program was as hilariously ironic as that title makes it sound.

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Tertia Withershins

After Blythe’s announcement, former TST Houston leader “Tertia Withershins” defended Blythe on Reddit and summarized Blythe’s time at the Temple this way:

(Again, they mean the Satanists Nextdoor podcast.)

Withershins, who had been on TST Houston’s corporate paperwork under that pseudonym, claimed to have resigned May 26 as well, following resignation from the Ordination Council and forcibly removed from TST ministry two weeks before.

I was not asked to leave TST Houston. Instead, this morning, I resigned. I do not have anything that I have kept hostage. I do not and never have had physical paperwork in my possession. I deleted the email account from my phone, and I assume that they will change the password. I don’t plan on attempting to access anything.

The idea that the people leaving are just do-nothing complainers who never contributed anything to The Satanic Temple is clearly false, but give it time and see how many new members with no institutional memory believe that same line.

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Karl Kasarda

Going backward again in the timeline, around the same time as Desjardins’ post and the original Twitter public kerfuffle, Karl Kasarda — known publicly as the GunTuber InRange TV and sometimes collaborator of Atun-Shei Films but more relevant here as the director of “SatanOps” — was partially forced out by an agent of the Executive Ministry, the pseudonymous contractor “Rachel Chambless“; whereupon Kasarda then fully resigned, still wishing well for Soling, Misicko, and TST’s Executive Director and Religious Reproductive Rights Director “Erin Helian”.

Former TST UK leader Tiff Williams, who was part of breaking off in reaction to the David Silverman debacle of 2023 to form what would ultimately become “Sanctum of Satan”, re-posted to Facebook on May 13 the text from a TST group text(?) from Kasarda in full, although only part of the original image was included.

Partial Screenshot of quoted text from Karl Kasarda resignation

This is interesting because on his more public-facing InRange TV Discord post of the matter on May 15, Kasarda described it this way:

Karl Kasarda InRange TV Discord resignation

Anyway, this difference between mostly behind-the-scenes, leaked reactions versus all of the public restraint and vagaries might actually be explicable, as one Redditor pointed out, “[C]onsidering all of the alleged defamation lawsuits the temple has allegedly pursued might be a possible reason for why people are being vague about leaving.”

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Richard Proctor

One person who did speak out a little bit more, perhaps because he can expect some legal protections from the separation of the Atlantic Ocean is Richard Proctor, the “Neurodivergent Satanist” who also served as a Minister in Ireland, on May 25 gave “An Account of Recent Events“, which despite its lack of sourcing is actually quite decent.

One especially pertinent detailed relayed in that short account: “If you were to take TST’s ordination course, only one minister who delivered an ordination lesson is still in TST: Lucien himself. The rest have all since left.”

Earlier, May 13, Proctor said this (that podcast coming up again):

Reminder that, last year, Proctor was making jokes about how many times he’d seen exactly this play out and justifying why it wasn’t any big deal.

Richard Proctor (the neurodivergent satanist) Facebook post. Everyone: Freakin out cuz of Lucien drama. Me:

As recently as a few weeks before that, Proctor was laughing about TST suing someone for talking about Misicko’s tendency of targeting younger women for romantic attention.

Back to Lanzifer Longinus who said the quiet part out loud: “I’ve been here a long time myself. I was here though about 3 different shittenings that took place over the years.”

The same Longinus also took glee in TST forcing a woman in Texas to retract her video about a sexual assault she was aware of in her Austin chapter.

Facebook post by Lanzifer Longinus with hashtage #ChangeOfHeart, images of The Satanic Housewife posting a video about TST labeled "fucking around" and tearful forced apology labeled "finding out"

All of these people rather enthusiastically supported TST lying about and attacking people for many years, and they made themselves OK or better than OK with it.

We’d like to think that some or all of them will sit with their current experience now, and sit and think about how those still in The Satanic Temple are treating them now, and re-consider the way they themselves treated previous former members and critics — as a first step toward making public amends now that they find themselves on the outside looking in.

But given all that’s happened, it seems just as likely they’ll say, “It’s so unfair we’re getting treated like all those former members when we didn’t even do anything to deserve it.”

Let’s hope they prove us wrong.

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