A wave of individual departures

Jump to

• Inciting incident
  • Lucien Greaves “Invitation To Leave” email
  • Canadian TST Minister responds
  • Lucien Greaves “fires” Canadian Minister
  • Memes mocking Lucien Greaves
  • “Internal Nobodies” rebel publicly
  • Lucien Greaves posts “An Apology” on Substack
  • Canadian TST member responds
  • Lucien Greaves goes on a sycophant podcast
  • A second Substack hits the schism
  • An announcement on Slack
• A wave of individual departures
  • Greg Stevens (Head of TST Ministry)
  • Lanzifer Longinus
  • Dex Desjardins
  • Chalice Blythe
  • Tertia Withershins
  • Karl Kasarda (“InRange TV”)
  • Richard Proctor (“The Neurodivergent Satanist”)
• Local Groups leave
  • The Satanic Temple Minnesota
  • The Satanic Temple of Florida
  • The Satanic Temple of Australia
  • The Satanic Temple of Colorado
  • Coalition of Satanic Congregations
  • The Satanic Temple of Alabama
  • The Satanic Temple of North Carolina
  • Friends of The Satanic Temple France
  • The Satanic Temple Nevada
  • The Satanic Temple South Carolina
  • Other group defections
  • “Hail Lucien Greaves“
• On Schisms

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.

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What happened is that Penemue actively refused to remove a QS supporting Minister from the Ministry Slack. Washington removed this minister from our congregation because he refused to sign our Code of Conduct. We notified Ministry, SurCo and Concerns that we had removed him, but were surprised when he was still in the ministry slack. Then we had screenshots of him openly working with QS, and eventually his group started a by removed cohead from Washington fund raising for them. We resubmitted all of this as it came up and at one point one of us was called “emotionally manipulative” by Penemue. We were upset because there is active litigation against QS by TST, and we could not fathom how leaving someone working with QS, who no longer even met the standards as a minister, could still be in private TST spaces. That was most of 2023. Then in October we finally messaged a person on the Ordination Council about it and they removed this minister finally. Sadly, that person was then forced, by bullying, out by the Ordination council. We don’t know if it had anything to do with the minister that they removed, rightly so, or ? My ordination came up this year in April and I read the rules and sent an email asking for clarification that another minister on the regional committee could write me a letter of recommendation. He said no, even when it was clear in the T-Docs (rules) that I could. It was an attempt to force me out. I reported it and we reported the incident from the year past and while I don’t know if that was why he was removed, I have been told it wasn’t the only issue.

u/Simple_Heat_2113 on Reddit

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:

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I did not talk about how we had more recently received reports, and supporting documentation, demonstrating that our former head of ministry not only allowed a minister to remain in our spaces who was also a member of an organization that is expressly dedicated to undermining and destroying TST, but he also failed to convey these reports to Executive Ministry (even as we are in active litigation against those in question)

I assume that’s Penemue, although of course it doesn’t say.

Our former head of ministry resigned while we were investigating the situation regarding the malicious minister, and he spent April transferring appropriate access and records to us, his last day being May 1st, at which point he had no further business with us.

Again, sounds like that’s him.

Daniel Walker, co-host of podcast Black Mass Appeal, as u/SSF415, (May 20, 2024)

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”.

Doug Misicko: But that didn’t cause any introspection with people. I think they still held on this narrative that somehow I’m embarrassing, somehow I’ve gotten out of hand. And even I had seen people talking about- and still see people talking about our legal battles, campaigns, the things I work on on a daily basis, as being my pet legal projects that really aren’t- don’t have anything to do with what TST really is. And I felt like that was so weird because it goes beyond not having respect for what you do. And then- but it’s too much to ask and not have open disrespect heaped upon you. And as we kind of, as I kind of talked about these things with people, people began to throw our Head of Ministry [ed.: “Penemue”, a.k.a. Greg Stevens] under the bus and say that he was really fomenting these types of feelings and that the message they were getting more often than not was that, “EM is not TST”. “You don’t really answer to Executive Ministry”. You know, “this is, this is bigger than that. It’s bigger than them”. And it’s a very kind of divisive message. And to be completely honest, I was getting really pissed with our Head of Ministry for a while. And I was recommending his removal. And I was having a difficult time for a while convincing others of that. And it carried on for a while. But I had stopped having communication with them. I let it be known that my trust was completely burnt out on that front. I didn’t trust him anymore. And I wasn’t going to I wasn’t going to work with him. And I felt that he should be removed, in order to help try to build a culture in which we didn’t attack one another.

Doug Misicko, [23:57]

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.

Doug Misicko: And our Head of Ministry [ed. Greg “Priest Penemue” Stevens] had stepped down at the- first of this month was his last day in the position that he held. And so, you know, I was paying attention to Ministry more. I had been talking about unifying the organization and the fact that ministry was going to be run under EM, in that we were going to have a unified mission-driven organization, and that’s just the way it’s going to be. And if people had bothered to read what I was writing, maybe they wouldn’t have been so surprised. So, the Head of Ministry stepped down on the first, and by whatever it was, the ninth or something like that, removing a Minister, ninth, tenth, eleventh, whatever. So, I remove a Minister, and, you know, this causes panic. And in the course of this panic, nobody seems to consider that what they did was inappropriate, that maybe they should have some professional conduct standards, that maybe somebody should apologize, maybe somebody should take some ownership for this kind of thing happening. No! They started melting down, and they make a mad run on internal documents.

And in background chatter that they don’t know I’m also getting screenshots of, they are speaking openly of taking our internal documents and doing their own thing. And people complain that we have NDAs, and I wonder if those fucking people have ever had a job [Lilin: Mmm.] because we deal with documents that can contain people’s social security numbers. We do everything we can to maintain people’s anonymity when they want it and use their pseudonyms. But we also have personnel documents. We also have proprietary operational documents. This is what an organization is. [Tommy: Yep!] This is how an organization works. You don’t come into an organization and claim that you have ownership of any part of that. You disagree with the organization. You feel the organization is going another way. It’s too fucking bad. The organization still holds the documents.

We started locking people out of their access, because apparently they didn’t realize that we would be able to see from an IT perspective that these mass downloads are happening. So we start locking people out of their accounts, sending them messages saying, “This is why you’re locked out of your account. Like, why was this going on?” And people start resigning. People start resigning and saying, “Now we’re going on a mad witch hunt.” [Tommy: chuckling] All they did was nothing. And I just went insane, and now heads are coming off, and they need to scramble and get all the assets and resources they can and take off with them or, kind of hold them hostage for the next time around when they try to push me out of the organization, and use that material or whatever. And so it was a panic kind of perpetuated by themselves. And then our former Head of Ministry, who had resigned, he removes people from our ordination council. And then they think, “Well, we’ve dissolved the ordination council, so here’s just another part of this lopping of heads and this mass dismissal that just came out of the blue, because now the story starts that I just sent an insulting email about some light-hearted memes… So somebody posted the logs that showed that the removals from the ordination council were actually done by the prior Head of Ministry, who still had access at that time. Now we’ve gotten rid of it.[laughs] And then last night, we get this bizarre ransom letter from the former Head of Ministry. And it says that if, you know, sorry, he set up a TST dot link, which was a link shortener account thing, and that he had done this with the own money and didn’t ask for compensation. And therefore, he was going to hold on to this, and he was going to hold on to this Sammael archive that he had put together, which was rituals and documents from the ministry. And he wasn’t going to give those to us. Unless we posted this message on our, our- ministry Slack for like an hour and then sent them a screenshot, like total ransom notes shit. And the message said that, of course, that he had been lied about and that what had really happened was that he didn’t really remove people from the Ordination Council (but that he had). And that, nonetheless, he had, he claimed that he had only done it because somebody else was removed and other people were suspended, and there was literally nobody left. And in any case, EM could add them back at any time, which was ridiculous, because the fact that anybody was removed or suspended from their accounts for mass downloads did not justify him removing anybody. He still didn’t have to do that. So this message, even if posted, wouldn’t have made him look any better, I don’t think to begin with. But the offer was that if we posted this message and then sent to improve that we did, he might be willing to sell us these assets, that have been set up in our name. So obviously the answer to that was no. [Tommy laughs] And we move forward. And that’s pretty much the entirety of the situation now.

Doug Misicko, on Satanists Nextdoor Ep. 46 [32:15]

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.

@LucienGreaves
HEY LOOKIE HERE. I'M AN INFERNAL SOMEBODY… pic.twitter.com/2dcXe2AiKk

— Lanzifer Longinus (@lanzifer) May 11, 2024

I have seen much worse happen over the years than the memes posted two days ago. I must be jaded I guess. I was around for the old razzle randazza dazzle and other things that resulted in shitstorms for days and even weeks…

Lanzifer Longinus

In my experience, you get a group of people who present themselves that way, feel comfortable insulting us, feel entitled to denigrate us as our own representatives, and express their distance from us from within, the “much worse” is inevitable.

Lucien Greaves

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.

I don't need to be told what happened. I know what happened. I am sick of watching you do everything to ignore your own disgraceful behavior. I'm a prop in some pictures for you. We're not friends. Have fun.

— Lucien Greaves (@LucienGreaves) May 13, 2024

I don’t need to be told what happened. I know what happened. I am sick of watching you do everything to ignore your own disgraceful behavior. I’m a prop in some pictures for you. We’re not friends. Have fun.

Lucien Greaves

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.

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

Dex joined The Satanic Temple (TST) in July 2015. In November 2016, he co-founded a community group for Satanists that in February 2018 became TST Albany Chapter (now, TST Albany Congregation). He served as Chapter Head, followed by a brief period serving as the Chapter’s Media Liaison. He was appointed to TST’s senior advisory body, the International Council, in March 2020.

Dex was a researcher, lesson writer, test developer, and lesson presenter for TST’s ordination program. In November 2020, he was recruited into the newly-formed Ordination Council to help with the program’s further development and administration. He was officially ordained by TST’s Satanic Ministry as a Minister of Satan on March 25, 2021. He has performed marriages in upstate New York and in New Jersey.

In July 2022, Dex was appointed as a Media Relations Specialist for TST, granting him the authority to speak on behalf of The Satanic Temple to news outlets and other media platforms and organizations.

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.

Neacail, one of Canada’s longest serving CH’s is one of the hardest working, most conscientious people in TST, serving on multiple committees, helping get Satanism recognized in Canada, creating an ordination continuing education lesson, and serving on the weekend services team.

He made some lighthearted memes poking fun at the stated reason for the cancellation of SatanCon, and was hit with a tirade that attributed other people’s statements to him and described him, one of TST’s most liked and most productive leaders — and everyone like him by extension — as an “internal nobody”

What people are upset about is the gravity of overreaction to what were some pretty innocuous memes, and then his forced resignation of a person without any interest in our organization’s due process, which was put into place for ALL to use and for ALL to be accountable to.

If the memes were a problem, a proper complaint should’ve been filed through SurCo so this could’ve been handled correctly. People are upset because of

• the way this was handled,
• the amount of punching down that came from on high,
  the lack of respect of due process,
• the fact that an enormous segment of our ministry and leadership was directly insulted,
• the way in which Lucien’s ongoing public fighting with long-standing members and leaders posts an existential threat to our legal cases.

Everyone can do with what they want with this information, but those are the facts of what took place.

Dex Desjardins

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.

I was a CIA plant this entire time. Uncovered nothing. pic.twitter.com/ILe0P6oS20

— Chalice Blythe (@ChaliceBlythe) May 26, 2024

Resurrecting from the pet cemetery to acknowledge several inquiries I’ve received over the last few weeks. I resigned my position from The Satanic Temple’s Ordination Council earlier this month, as well as my ordination as a Minister of Satan. I no longer consider myself a member of The Satanic Temple.

I have no interest in discussing this with anybody, speculation on my reasoning will likely be far more interesting than reality. Therefore, make it as comical and outlandish as you please. I won’t bother confirming or denying.

“Chalice Blythe”

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

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:

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She was the After School Satan campaign director. She worked on Grey Faction. She was on the Ordination Council and did one of the lessons for the ordination coursework, and was working on another when she resigned. She was on the core committee for SatanCon. She founded SurCo and served on it.

There are some people who were really at the heart of TST, and she was one of them. Working with her was a pleasure and an honor, and part of the outrage that people who are quitting is over how she was treated, both privately and now publicly on that fucking podcast.

Tertia Withershins

(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.

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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.

…

I resigned from OrdCo two weeks ago. Got removed from ministry shortly after.

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.

I have resigned.

Malcolm,

It is with the most heavy of hearts and sadness that I have come to the conclusion that I am no longer willing to be treated as I have been, nor stand by to watch other dedicated members and leadership be treated the way that they are. Before even ever joining IC, I had a dream of a platform in which we could more professionally function, as well as collaborate, in a shared and more secure space. A place where Ministers (not even yet a thing) would have email addresses that reflected the importance of their role, and provide a more formal image of our organization and our religious movement.

Through the churn of the change from IC to the pillar system (which, by the way, I was never a fan of), SatanOps was born from chaos – and in that chaos, we finally had a chance to build that thing.

This became .Org.

I was nominated the Director, reinforced by yourself and Doug directly , with Doug announcing it in one of our Townhalls. Since that day we have used this platform to provide a more professional space, while also ensuring higher levels of privacy and security than ever achieved before within our organization.

.Org has helped bring congregations, ministry and campaigns together in a single space of collaboration and communication. .Org was instrumental in helping mitigate, and minimize, security issues and concerns during high stress events (such as the Sober Faction fractionalization, amongst many others).

In each in every one of those instances, I was brought in as the Director and administrator of the platform to help serve the needs and security of the entire community, EM and congregants alike – hopefully doing a professional and respectful job for all.

This is, at least, what I strived for.

As of a few days ago, I have been revoked of my rights by what I consider to be an outsider & interloper. No communication, no collaboration, no information – we were merely told that our rights were removed for an investigation and that was it.

Through the chatter I am finding out that some long time dedicated volunteers and TST leaders are having their passwords changed against their will (presumably by Rachel and/or her team) – this indicates to me that this is being done to read their email, access their chat systems, or whatever else their .Org account had access to.

I am also hearing about account suspensions.

All of this somehow revolves around this “investigation”, that as the Director of Ops, I have been not told anything about, nor allowed to help with, but instead merely kicked out of the system I am supposed the director of, by Rachel, and therefore via proxy, by EM.

I was AZ congregational leadership.

I was AZ’s media liaison.

I was a member of International Council.

I was a member of SatanCon.

I became the Director of SatanOps and have been trusted with .Com and .Org as well as our first clinic infrastructure, both online and laptops.

Yet, in spite of that record of trust building and loyalty, Rachel removed my administrative access, and my entire team’s access, with no warning whatsoever.

I am at a loss as to what I, or my Ops team has done, besides provide truly professional services to an organization that I now see (at least based on these actions from the “Executive Team”) to be, at a minimum, utterly disrespected and unimportant.

To see .Org be used as a weapon, rather than something positive and collaborative, against my fellow TST community members and leaders is immoral and reprehensible.

This email may sound like merely an issue with her, but it is not, as she is acting either with no repercussions or, worse, at the behest of EM directly.

Regardless of which of those situations is correct, it means that EM is, at minimum, complicit, at worst, actively engaged in penalizing their most dedicated volunteers and members – empowered by using the platform I helped create as a weapon. These actions go against everything I personally hold sacred; these tools are meant to liberate and empower us – not imprison, or punish.

If there is a true security issue afoot then my team, and myself as the Director, should have been engaged to handle this properly and with professionalism and respect, for everyone involved – leadership and those who are being investigated. Instead…we find a paranoid outsider running what looks like a witch hunt, destroying a community that took a decade to build.

I can not be complicit in these actions, nor am I aligned with the actions of this organization internally any further. I have publicly stood proudly with TST – endangering my career, my income, my business, and potentially my own personal security in this mutual goal of fighting against theocracy while building a new religious movement.

I regret nothing that I have done nor the work we have accomplished, all of us, together in these last years.

I regret now what I have seen it become.

I can no longer be a Director.

I can no longer be a Minister.

I cam no longer a member.

Ave Satanas

Karl Kasarda

Former AZ CH, former AZ Media [Liaison]

Karl Kasarda

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

This falls more into my personal life than here, but since it has been very public anyways, I feel like it’s a good idea to post something here, to my core supporters. I will not be saying anything more public than this on this topic.

After 7+ years of volunteering for TST (The Satanic Temple), I have decided to resign. While I wish them much success in their struggle against encroaching theocracy, I have decided that it is best for me to move on and focus on my time in other ways. I will not answer any questions about this and would prefer you did not ask, but if you see people commenting on my association with TST, feel free to correct them that this is no longer the case – respectfully.

I appreciate all of you for your continued support, and we shall continued to strive for a positive, inclusive community here at InRange. On a positive note, I will have ore spoons to contribute to this, and other important endeavors. Thank you.

Karl Kasarda

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):

I have raised this point no less than 4 times directly to Lucien (including email) in the hopes he'd at LEAST acknowledge his mistake but nope, he doesn't appear the least bit interested. So I'm going to leave my original comment here and deleting this app again. pic.twitter.com/ei5lkWgRxJ

— Richard Proctor (@Proctor_ie) May 13, 2024

Lucien appeared on the Satanists next door podcast and verbally put his hands in the air and admit that communication from EM to TST’s ministers has been pretty bad. A lot of what he highlights in this email is a direct result of that bad communication.

When TST “divided” into its two pillars, EM were always squarely on the campaigns side with the SoC left to its own devices with some committees and rules in place to keep it going on the straight and narrow without EM micromanaging. You can clearly see how TST’s campaigns, the work it does, it’s legal cases, is the only way in which TST holds any value to EM and while that might be the whole reason TST was founded, it NOW also has a huge, vibrant community that EM just don’t have their finger on the pulse of and [see as an infighting nuisance].

This is what I meant by the community outgrowing TST proper and EM: There are huge entire swathes of the community, to which, TST’s campaigns and the actions of EM mean very little, mostly, the European members (hi). Does this mean that non US TST congregations are no longer going to be a thing, in the name of “Unity”? We are TST because our Satanism aligns with the philosophy of TST and as social creatures, we seek community with like minded satanists. Together we can achieve great things and TST has been a great beacon light under which to gather.

The tenets are not just a vaguely worded set of “ten commandment” rivals that can be slot into any belief structure and used to further legitimise TST as a religious body, they are deeply held beliefs to an entire community of people and they include the right to offend.

Now I get it, as Ministers we’re expected to carry the standard of TST and are seen as representatives, to an extent, by the public, regardless of whether we are or not. If you want to be openly critical of TST and it’s leadership and you do so publicly as one of it’s ministers, I can absolutely see why this would frustrate EM.
What I’m reading in this email is a frustrated Lucien in the driver seat yelling how he’s gonna turn this car around and corral the SoC back in to “Unify” structure because they couldn’t behave themselves and stop distracting from TST’s campaigns, the only part that EM is involved with and, again, sees any value in.

Richard Proctor

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.

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.

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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