May 17, 2024

The Satanic Temple and its Eternal Nobodies

Local Groups leave

The Satanic Temple Minnesota leaves

But it wasn’t just people as individuals or TST’s “ministerial pillar” that was reacting negatively to all of this; local congregations were getting in on it, too.

Back on May 16, a very online member of The Satanic Temple’s Minnesota congregation made this reply to Lanziger Longinus.

New page “Minnesota Satanists” arrived May 17:

A couple days later, on May 18, this seemed to gain some wider exposure thanks to a Reddit commenter wondering what was going on (“Thanks for sharing. I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on because the Minnesota chapter just severed itself from TST but no one is saying what’s happened.”)

And on May 20, the new Minnesota Satanists group shared their GoFundMe for Gay Pride 2024 activities.

We’re not aware of anything being posted about the change publicly as TST Minnesota until May 27 (“While we wish the former TST Minnesota leadership team all the best in their new venture…)” where a Discord invitation was dropped on Facebook in a transparent attempt to rebuild like nothing had happened, which based on past history, you can expect to be TST’s reaction in general assuming TST can manage to shut up the ex-members, anyhow.

But that might be hard this time.

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The Satanic Temple of Florida leaves

Florida’s group is especially important because The Satanic Temple has been claiming they’ll counter the Christian Nationalists’ school chaplain program with their own. But no news organization ever bothers to ask “Who specifically would actually be doing that?”

This was deleted from TST Florida’s Instagram account pretty quickly May 19, but the point about why was clearly made, given the reference the title is making.

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The Satanic Temple of Australia leaves

Australia did it as a Facebook post on May 22, which a week later was still up (and notice the careful language used here as far as them already being an independent org):

Even Satanic Temple loyalists were largely sympathetic to this one given how many times non-US chapters/congregations have split off already.

(It’s happened so much, it’s really hard to keep track, actually.)

The Danish Satanist, Ole Wolf, put it this way on Reddit, “[A]s a non-American, I can sympathize. I would find it difficult to support an almost entirely American project. Its Americentrism is one of several reasons I cannot see myself being a member of the Temple.”

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The Satanic Temple Colorado leaves

On May 23, another U.S. group announced their departure, and it was a big one.

They then linked to their newsletter:

A footnote at the bottom also said, “Satanic Colorado is a 501(c)(3) formerly doing business as The Satanic Temple Colorado. It is an operationally independent congregation previously recognized by The Satanic Temple Society of Congregations.

So, in short, preserving everything you already like but sans “The Satanic Temple” and “TST’s Society of Congregations”.

On May 31, they would go to be even more forthright in their June 2024 newsletter under the new branding, explaining some of the process for and reasoning, for which this was but the last straw.

This one hurts. “Satanic Colorado” wasn’t just any local TST group, after all.

“Satanic Colorado” in the Colorado Secretary of State website

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Coalition of Satanic Congregations

Wouldn’t you know it, something interesting happened May 23, the same day Colorado announced their own departure.

Per its transparency tab, this “Coalition of Satanic Congregations” Facebook page was created May 18, 2024.

As of May 23, the three groups openly associated with this coalition are “Satanic Colorado” created May 13, “Minnesota Satanists” created May 15, and “Sunshine Serpent Society” created May 20.

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The Satanic Temple of Alabama leaves

Late the night of May 23, another congregation announced they’d broken away, this one in Birmingham, Ala. Rather than go with a Facebook page, they made a Facebook group the same day called “Alabama Society for Pluralism and Freethought” along with a Discord server.

Perhaps more surprisingly, “After School Satan” club national lead “June Everett” showed up as well.

What makes this particularly notable, besides her out-sized role in national TST issues due to the ASS clubs notoriety, is that just a year ago, Everett was saying, “As a CD [Campaign Director], I feel that I am a Representative for The Satanic Temple, and how do I plead that I’m not? Because I have no plans to quit. In fact, I want to fight even harder.” She also compared Misicko’s continued behavior to having been “the owner shat on the carpet and then raised the rent on all of us” but if this step of openly acknowledging the fleeing groups isn’t a top-down tactic, it signals a pretty big change afoot.

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The Satanic Temple of North Carolina leaves

And they keep coming, this time from “Zee Cross“, now two weeks after Doug Misicko’s first email telling everyone who doesn’t like TST to get out.

That last link goes to “Sixth Circle Fellowship“, a page created created May 24.

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Friends of The Satanic Temple France leaves

Rumors of more local groups breaking off continue to circulate.

It’s gotten so bad some groups are giving up before even making full “congregation” status, perhaps noticing earlier thanks to all of the chaos what so many communities outside of the USA have noticed about The Satanic Temple and how it operates.

“France Satanique et Francophones” created a Facebook page May 27, and made this this post the same day:

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The Satanic Temple Nevada

On May 29, The Satanic Temple Nevada (TSTNV) announced it had officially split with Salem-based org, renaming itself in reference to the to states’s flag/motto as “Battle Born Satanists.”

Local member Trevor Greene posted a short announcement to Facebook just after 8 p.m. local time.

Also the evening of May 29, Jonathan Crowson, co-leader of the Nevada group and one of the cc’s in Doug Misicko’s original May 10 email, wrote a bit more and included a fun sort of photo with it that seemed to call back to Doug Misicko’s own “pink mass” tea-bagging stunt from 2013 as well as further mock the “Year of Unity”.

Source: Jonathan Crowson Facebook post

A decade-plus on, and TST no longer can honestly call itself an insurgent force, however much mainstream media finds that narrative comfortable.

According to Crowson and TSTNV, the group “unanimously decided in favor of severing ties with The Satanic Temple international organization unequivocally.”

Presumably around the same time, the website TSTNV.com (archive) made a longer announcement, stating The Satanic Temple Nevada was closing out more than five years of continuous existence including almost two years as an “official congregation” by removing itself from what remains of the larger org.

According to TSTNV, the unanimous vote to leave in the wake of the Executive Ministry’s “toddler tantrums”, connecting it back to “[s]ad reminders of past behavior and conduct unbecoming of these same individuals, a cycle that appears will continue to repeat without drastic change.”

One of the really remarkable aspects of all of these statements, especially taken together, is just how much these folk seem to genuinely believe in the mission The Satanic Temple promotes itself as having. These are not bitter malcontents; they are deeply disappointed in discovering — belatedly — all of those critics and former members they were told to ignore might have been making some good points all along.

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The Satanic Temple South Carolina

A Reddit thread from a TST South Carolina member on May 25 laid out how dire things look to the rank-and-file in many of places around the country where the leadership situation was unclear to people.

Meanwhile, from the Facebook page associated with The Satanic Temple – South Carolina, you’d never know.


Latest post on The Satanic Temple – South Carolina Facebook page as of May 30, 2024

But May 30, we did get an update from Ele Asteria, now Former Congregation Co-Head at The Satanic Temple – South Carolina.

With all of these, you can hear the precautions people are trying to take in these statements against the very real threat of lawsuits. From the above, “We will be returning all property of TST official to TST, including our current Facebook page and group.”

Clearly lots of people inside/recently inside know full well about the particulars of the SLAPP action against the four of us, and how easy it could be to be targeted by the same. However, this also suggests they still don’t fully understand what a SLAPP is or what really happened to us (and others TST targeted before and sense).

In our case, none of the four of us signed any agreement that could be violated, not Non-Disclosure Agreements, not Affiliate Agreements, and there was no Non-Disparagement In-Perpetuity clause to activate. Therefore, TST had to invent a new excuse (defamation and cypercrime, mostly). The Satanic Housewife made a TikTok video on her own account that had never been associated with TST; they sued her anyway.

The point is TST works backward from “we want to hurt you”. They don’t actually have a right to any of this stuff; four years of litigation has made it pretty clear that just like Meta would tell you, Facebook owns Facebook pages.

If they’re motivated enough to stem the bleeding, Misicko and Soling will deploy their lawyers to come up with some new excuse from all of this. We don’t wish ill on any of these people, but it has been a pattern thus far that a lot of people don’t understand how TST operates and how little TST’s victims over the years have actually done anything to deserve it until TST treats they themselves as the latest victims.

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Other group defections

It would be almost impossible to keep track of all of the groups that have de facto imploded as all or nearly all of their local leadership resigned and/or was expelled.

The Satanic Temple Germany, for example, made a public announcement about how their local leadership group was resigning and revoking their ordination as “Ministers of Satan”.

But for those that have no one left who can make an announcement, it’s trickier. South Carolina seemed to be one of those, up until May 30. Canada’s Atlantic Coast Congregation where all of this started when its Minister was unilaterally fired by email seems to be nonexistent, but that’s just general chatter. So far, we haven’t seen anything official stating it outright. “TST Idaho voted to go independent” — except maybe one person stayed on, which is enough for TST to consider the local group still around and “in regency”?

Backchannel networks of former and current members and publicly on Reddit seem to genuinely be the best way to keep track of what’s going on, as unpopular as being the bearer of bad but accurate news is in the Satanic Temple’s unofficial subreddit to its members.

There have been professions of loyalty so far as well, such as Switzerland, Washington State, and Dallas-Fort Worth (or maybe not the latter), but those assurances are, in their own ways, as troubling as the people leaving.

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“Hail Lucien Greaves”

Those remaining to operate The Satanic Temple’s direct propaganda organs are certainly doing their best to double-down and make it clear what critics have been saying for years: The Satanic Temple is Doug Misicko a.k.a. “Lucien Greaves”, and you have no way to replace or hold him accountable or make him change. All you can do is “hail” him or shut up.

The Satanic Temple TV May 20, 2024 Hail The Satanic Temple. Hail Lucien Greaves. Hail Satan.

Note the reactions in the comments, though.

And likewise, dissent is as unwelcome as it ever was, including correcting “misinformation” that involves you.

On May 28, the Satanic Ministry account posted this, and it was promptly removed without warning after being saved by a few quick-screenshotters (Facebook)(Twitter).

Remember, TST and its owners are not above criticism, it’s just that every single example of criticism or your own experiences you can think of contrary to their narrative is invalid, improper, counter-productive, or defamatory in the eyes of those who stay in the Temple.

And, again, just based on their literally formulaic responses to whole groups of on-the-ground volunteer leaders and communities breaking away, the goal will be to rebuild like nothing happened and keep expecting news media not to notice that “TST in Discord” is on the nose in more ways than one.

There is no reform to stop this from happening again because, as Misicko told you, The Satanic Temple is whatever he and Cevin Soling say it is. They’d quite literally rather have five people dedicated to their private ends and happy to be a part of it than 50,000 people who are enthusiastic, capable, and dedicated but have any sense of ownership of their labor or disagree with them in any way.

This is not a bug; it is the primary feature of what they do.

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TST sued us from April 2020 to September 2024, and we are still here.