{"id":182592,"date":"2019-01-23T06:25:18","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T06:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=182592"},"modified":"2019-01-26T05:51:16","modified_gmt":"2019-01-26T05:51:16","slug":"the-rise-of-satanism-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=182592","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of Satanism in America"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Sheila Flynn \u2013 Daily Mail Jan 21, 2019<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>The Satanic Temple, founded in 2012 by Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry, has since spread to dozens of chapters across the US and Europe<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>Its evolution is chronicled in new documentary Hail Satan?, directed by Penny Lane, which has its world premiere this month at Sundance Film Festival<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>The Temple, which runs a property open to the public in Salem, Massachusetts, sets out seven tenets focusing on activism, diversity and the body&#8217;s inviolability\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>TST has made various political moves, from demanding a statue of Baphomet be displayed on state property to suing Netflix for a portrayal in new Sabrina series\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>Detroit chapter head Jex Blackmore, who features prominently in the film, has been kicked out of the Temple\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>Greaves says in the film: &#8216;This is the infancy of The Satanic Temple. In our own humble little way, we are changing the world&#8217;<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/satanic_temple.si_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-118531\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/satanic_temple.si_.jpg\" alt=\"satanic_temple.si\" width=\"540\" height=\"304\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/satanic_temple.si_.jpg 690w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/satanic_temple.si_-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">They first cropped up seemingly out of nowhere about six years ago, adorned in black capes with curved devil horns affixed to their heads, holding posters and black American flags as they shouted \u2018Hail, Satan\u2019 on the steps of government institutions from Arkansas and <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/florida\/index.html\"><strong>Florida<\/strong><\/a><\/span> to Oklahoma and Detroit. The antics and declarations seemed like a hoax to many \u2013 onlookers and journalists and politicians alike \u2013 until it became apparent that members of newly-formed The Satanic Temple were here to stay.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">And they were growing, exponentially. Since TST\u2019s founding in 2012, the organization has increased from a handful of members to tens of thousands, with chapters all over the US and the globe, from Stockholm to <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/london\/index.html\"><strong>London<\/strong><\/a><\/span> and Los Angeles to <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/texas\/index.html\"><strong>Texas<\/strong><\/a><\/span>. And their \u2018pranksterism,\u2019 as filmmaker Penny Lane first considered it, has given way to a well-conceived ethos, forming an organized \u2018religion\u2019 for a \u2018group of contrarians\u2019 opposed to any organization at all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Satanic Temple, it seems, is becoming more and more firmly established across the United States \u2013 largely composed of individuals who don\u2019t even worship Satan in the first place but center on a different interpretation of biblical teachings. And Lane\u2019s new documentary about the group, premiering later this month at Utah\u2019s famed Sundance Film Festival, paints a surprising portrait of the unlikely \u2018religion\u2019 \u2013 one which has challenged even the preconceived notions of the director herself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018The reason this became a feature length documentary was that I found so many interesting surprises at each stage of discovery,\u2019 says Lane, the title of whose documentary \u2013 Hail, Satan? \u2013 fittingly addresses the controversy surrounding the relatively neophyte group.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018Every layer of the onion that we peeled back, there was like something really surprising at the next layer. The first thing you know, I could see, was how serious and intelligent they were \u2013 despite what you might expect of a bunch of Satanists. They were really sophisticated thinkers, and many times the people who would go out in public against what they do would sound like raving lunatics.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In comparison to the protesting hardcore Christians, she says, \u2018the Satanists were like the adults in the room \u2013 not at all what I was expecting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018The next thing I came to understand was they weren\u2019t pretending to be Satanists to make a political point. They were Satanists. My understanding of what a Satanist was simply incorrect \u2013 so those were the first kind of two layers of surprises for me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018Modern Satanism is a non-theistic religious practice that uses the symbol of the literary symbol of Satan as a kind of symbol \u2026 against tyrannical authority,\u2019 she tells DailyMail.com.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Hail, Satan? follows not only the TST founders but also regular members across the country and the world \u2013 trying \u2018to get a more accurate picture of day-to-day life at a local level, which is really at the heart of what the Satanic Temple is,\u2019 Lane continues. \u2018Like, oh, it looks like a bunch of headline-grabbing clever pranks \u2013 but in reality \u2026 what\u2019s going on here is nice people gathering in their communities who organize [charity events] \u2026 or do challenge very, very local power.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_96939\" style=\"width: 346px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Lucien-Greaves-spokesman-for-The-Satanic-Temple.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-96939\" class=\"size-full wp-image-96939\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Lucien-Greaves-spokesman-for-The-Satanic-Temple.jpg\" alt=\"Lucien Greaves, spokesman for The Satanic Temple; note the subtle closing of one eye. Click to enlarge\" width=\"336\" height=\"243\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Lucien-Greaves-spokesman-for-The-Satanic-Temple.jpg 336w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Lucien-Greaves-spokesman-for-The-Satanic-Temple-300x216.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 336px) 100vw, 336px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-96939\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lucien Greaves, spokesman for The Satanic Temple; note the subtle closing of one eye. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The documentary initially focuses on co-founders Lucien Greaves \u2013 not his real name, though he\u2019s pictured on camera and has essentially become the spokesperson for TST \u2013 and Malcolm Jarry, whose face is never shown. Many members, in fact, are pixelated in footage, and quite a big deal is made of the threats to members from people opposed to their views, despite the fact that many detractors have no idea what TST members actually believe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Greaves, for example \u2013 an articulate, well-educated 43-year-old with a somewhat disconcerting eye condition \u2013 is shown putting on a bullet proof vest before a public event, as fellow temple members go over security plans to keep him safe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018There\u2019s huge amounts of death threats and hatred and actually, to be frank, some mentally individuals out there who absolutely are really scary,\u2019 Lane tells DailyMail.com. \u2018Every time they went to an event, there were sensitive conversations about security. I don\u2019t want to overstate the fear, but it\u2019s more like, you never know what can happen \u2013 and the amount of daily kind of vitriol and violence that is threatened against them is really shocking.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Because The Satanic Temple has been formed years after the devil-worship panic of the 1980s and 1990s, when a veritable witch-hunt by the far right fueled urban legends and blamed horrid crimes on followers of Beelzebub. There were multiple incarnations of Satanic-centric religions and cults going back centuries; &#8216;The Satanic Temple did not invent modern Satanism,&#8217; Greaves says in the film.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Jesper Aagaard Peterson, who wrote The Invention of Satanism, says that a &#8216;founding aspect of Satanism [is] that you troll people. They faint or get angry or whatever happens, and then you move on.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">He refers to the Church of Satan, founded in 1966 by the flamboyant, Hollywood-esque character Anton Szandor LaVey &#8211; which billed itself as &#8216;the first above-ground organization in history openly dedicated to the acceptance of Man&#8217;s true nature &#8211; that of a carnal beast, living in a cosmos that is indifferent to our existence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8216;To us, Satan is the symbol that best suits the nature of we who are carnal by birth &#8211; people who feel no battles raging between our thoughts and feelings, we who do not embrace the concept of a soul imprisoned in a body. He represents pride, liberty, and individualism &#8211; qualities often defined as Evil by those who worship external deities, who feel there is a war between their minds and emotions.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Author Peterson, in Hail Satan?, says: &#8216;The Church of Satan is the watershed moment in the history of Satanism. That&#8217;s where the attribution of Satanic identity is not just something people do to others; it&#8217;s something people to do to themselves.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">While both Church of Satan and TST members self-identify, he says, the Church of Satan was &#8216;much more of a ratpack carnival. They were never political, whereas The Satanic Temple is actually refining Satanism and making it into a new tool, a new weapon in the ongoing culture wars.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Satanic Temple, for example, is not afraid to take legal action when it feels that representations of Baphomet and other Satanic icons are not accurate reflections of its ethos and organization.\u00a0 When Netflix released its new Chilling Adventures of Sabrina series last autumn, for example, the show featured a goat-headed statue of Baphomet &#8211; very similar to a sculpture commissioned by TST &#8211; which the Temple contended was portrayed as evil.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Satanic Temple sued Warner Brothers and Netflix &#8211; and in November announced that it had &#8216;amicably settled&#8217; the lawsuit, which also resolved that TST would be acknowledged in credits for pre-filmed episodes of the series.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Satanic Temple, religious studies professor R. Andrew Chesnut tells DailyMail.com, &#8216;actually present themselves as atheistic and really see Satan more as a metaphor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8216;They&#8217;ve actually been criticized by other old-school Satanist groups &#8211; how on earth can you say you&#8217;re Satanists, but at the same time claim to be atheistic? Because if you believe in Satan, Satan is a supernatural figure. So they&#8217;re really kind of a new generation of Satanists, and I think more than actual veneration of Satan, this is really about much more kind of politicized.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">He adds: &#8216;They don&#8217;t really seem engaged in the kind of organized rituals and worship that the older-school Satanist groups do.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">While the organization, as a whole, is unafraid of the spotlight, however, many individual members are not as eager to be identified.\u00a0Most of the interviewees featured in Hail Satan?, from the top of the organization down, go by pseudonyms. Many of them, however, look as one would expect; Jex Blackmore, for example, the former head of the Detroit chapter, is a pale beauty favoring dark hair and makeup, shown in one protest dressed as a nun, her nose pierced and her attitude defiant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018If you\u2019re godless , free-thinking and are a rebel, then you are a Satanist in the eyes of many in our community and society and, certainly, by people in your government, whether you like it or not,\u2019 Blackmore says in the film. \u2018Before I decided I was a Satanist, it was really the Bible that said, \u201cThis is what a Satanist was like.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Blackmore, who ironically once played Eve in a middle school play, continues: \u2018The story of Adam and Eve is a story of Eve\u2019s original sin. Eve was very curious, as her nature was as a woman. The devil appeared in the form of a snake and offers the fruit of enlightenment. We are taught to fear that, but at the same time, it seems the most liberating \u2013 because if we did not have that opportunity, we would have to be in total servitude, without free choice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018Ultimate servitude is slavery; reframing it in the light of salvation is probably one of the greatest tricks ever played on humankind.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018Satanism is about embracing that Satanic status, rather than being controlled by it. After I learned about The Satanic Temple, I set up a time to meet with Lucien. Throughout the conversation, I realized that we have very similar ideas of what contemporary Satanism was evolving to be.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018The devil directly challenged God, so \u2013 as a Satanist \u2013 I believe that directly confronting injustice and corrupt authority is an expression of one\u2019s Satanic faith \u2013 and I believe activism is a Satanic practice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018Traditionally, Satanists practice very privately, closed doors, black candles, black metal music, but with the Satanic philosophy being where Satanism represents rebellion against arbitrary authority, we believe it requires a level of political participation. I think that we need to go into the public sphere and announce ourselves without shame.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">That\u2019s exactly what the temple has done over the past nearly six years. It\u2019s fought for a statue of Baphomet \u2013 the goat demon representation of Lucifer \u2013 to be displayed on government grounds alongside the Ten Commandments to demonstrate the pluralism and religious diversity of the United States. It planned a Black Mass on the Harvard campus in Boston \u2013 one of the most Catholic cities in America \u2013 to directly contravene the teachings and traditions of one of the world\u2019s largest religions (though it was postponed and moved to a Chinese restaurant\/comedy club when the Boston Archdiocese staged a massive counter march).<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_96937\" style=\"width: 226px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Flyer-advertising-the-Satanic-Black-Mass-at-Harvard.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-96937\" class=\"wp-image-96937 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Flyer-advertising-the-Satanic-Black-Mass-at-Harvard-216x300.jpg\" alt=\"Flyer advertising the Satanic Black Mass at Harvard. Click to enlarge\" width=\"216\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Flyer-advertising-the-Satanic-Black-Mass-at-Harvard-216x300.jpg 216w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Flyer-advertising-the-Satanic-Black-Mass-at-Harvard.jpg 389w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 216px) 100vw, 216px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-96937\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flyer advertising a Satanic Black Mass at Harvard. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">To act out against the Baptist Church \u2013perhaps one of the most reviled religious factions in America, which protests soldier funerals, denounces gays and basically thinks that everyone is going to hell except members \u2013 the Satanic Temple held an unholy ceremony at the grave of founder Fred Phelps\u2019 mother. TST is nothing if not good at grabbing headlines, but Lane, through her years documenting the group, discovered additional undercurrents, philosophies and altruism embraced by the Satanic group.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018There is a sort of sizable portion of people who, even if they are not actually religious themselves or don\u2019t have any particularly strong kind of faith, still have kind of a negative reaction to Satanism, which is completely understandable, because we are talking about like the most reviled figure perhaps in human history,\u2019 she tells DailyMail.com. \u2018So it\u2019s not surprising that kind of blind assumption \u2026 comes with the territory.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018I think that we live in an era which is increasingly secular, especially amongst younger people. People do research from here to here; there are more and more younger people who are separating themselves from that kind of religious tradition of religious institutions. And there\u2019s something really lost with that. You lose a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018Religion provides a way of healing, meaning, and organization and narrative, coherent and community and ethical kind of standards or ways we consider difficult problems of how to live your life,\u2019 says Lane, who was raised with no religion herself. \u2018That\u2019s heavy stuff. So when you lose religion, you get a whole lot of people like myself who find themselves casting about for that kind of organizing principle.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018In The Satanic Temple kind of reincarnation of Satanism, they set up a kind of answer to that problem that resonates for a lot of people. It\u2019s not for everyone; it\u2019ll never be popular, per se. If it was, it would obviate the need for its own existence. I mean, they\u2019re supposed to be the outsider; they\u2019re supposed to be the outsider. They\u2019re supposed to be the kind of minority.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018They\u2019re not going to take over the world or anything, but there\u2019s obviously people who see themselves as being part of that marginalized outsider status [who] still want to be able to engage society and find brethren and organize themselves. That\u2019s what they do, and they\u2019ve really hit upon something that really does resonate for a lot more people than maybe I thought at the beginning.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Satanic Temple has seven clearly laid-out tenets \u2013 guidelines that would, perhaps, surprise many who think they know what Satanism is. They are: One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason; The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions; One\u2019s body is inviolable, subject to one\u2019s own will alone; The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To wilfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one\u2019s one; Beliefs should conform to one\u2019s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take never to distort scientific facts to fit one\u2019s beliefs; People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one\u2019s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might 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.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Professor Chesnut tells DailyMail.com: &#8216;In many ways &#8230; those are more Christian than a lot of parts of the Bible &#8211; and so what a lot of us would think about Satanism is definitely not reflected there. And advocating social justice and compassion and nobody has the right to tell you what to do with your body and everything &#8211; and I would say, also, putting it into a larger context, we&#8217;ve seen the proliferation in general of paganism and Wiccanism, witchcraft and stuff.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Echoing Lane&#8217;s observations about our increasingly secular society, he says: &#8216;I think this also is part of this kind of burgeoning interest in alternative pagan religions, particularly among millenials and Generation Z and stuff. The most important trend on the American religious landscape is the very rapid rise of the religious &#8220;nones&#8221; &#8211; those who have no formal religious institutional affiliation &#8211; which is now 25 percent of the American population, which is now more than Catholics. I think Catholics are down to 21 percent. If we&#8217;re looking at millennials and Generation Z, the religious &#8220;nones&#8221; goes up to at least a third of the population.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8216;There&#8217;s growing, rapid disenchantment with the institutitional religions, and yes, in the US context, that mostly means institutional Christianity, because still about 70 percent of Americans say that they&#8217;re Christians.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The tenets of The Satanic Temple &#8211; and the increasingly organized setup of TST, complete with a National Council &#8211; has thrown up perhaps some unexpected obstacles for a group opposed to organized religion. Jex Blackmore, the film shows, has already been thrown out for espousing views not in line with the larger TST ethos. At one event at her Detroit chapter &#8211; featuring pig heads shoved onto spikes &#8211; she shouted: \u2018We are going to disrupt, distort, destroy and reclaim, resist and rebuild. We are going to storm press conferences, kidnap an executive, release snakes in the governor\u2019s mansion.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">For a Satanic organization disavowing violence, that marked a dangerous aberration shedding a spotlight on the group it did not want.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Greaves continues: \u2018It was glaringly obvious that Jex, being the wildcard, that she is, wasn\u2019t really going to fit in the organization anymore. So Jex Blackmore is no longer part of the temple at this point.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018I called her, ultimately, but that was a national council discussion,\u2019 he says in the film. \u2018She said what she said, and we just couldn\u2019t have a double standard for anybody.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Blackmore, undeterred, says in the documentary: \u2018I have to say, it does feel a little bit satisfying to be fired from The Satanic Temple for being too extreme. There is a great fear that we are going to do something that is so off that it\u2019s somehow going to discredit our work. I mean, we\u2019re a Satanic organization. There\u2019s this fear of our legal system, which is part of what I\u2019m fighting against.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">For the national council and remaining high-level executives such as Greaves, however, the real fight \u2013 at least the one they purport to support &#8211; is for religious pluralism and democracy. The TST has a site in Salem, Massachusetts, complete with a learning center and a gift shop. Chapters around the country fight at a local level against abortion and other laws which they think are opposed to their tenet of the \u2018inviolable\u2019 human body. They still believe that, if Ten Commandments are displayed on government property, Baphomet and representations of other religions deserve an equal display.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">They\u2019re as likely to run charity blood drives or collect sanitation products for homeless women as they are to take part in any sort of dark ritual, the documentary seems to indicate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018Even just leaving the film aside, in personal conversations I\u2019ve had in the last few years with people, kind of explaining what it is and what they do and what they believe, people often end up saying: &#8220;That sounds like something I could get behind,\u201d\u2019 Lane tells DailyMail.com. \u2018That doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re going to run out and join a chapter, but you can be Satanically aligned without being a Satanist.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">She adds: \u2018Everyone thinks they know what Satanism is. Everyone I\u2019ve ever asked \u2026 they answer quite positively that a Satanist is someone who sacrifices babies and drinks their blood. And you\u2019re like, where does this idea come from? This was literally never true. People are completely convinced that it\u2019s true, so I find that delightful, as a filmmaker. I just think, well, in a fun way, how can I get people to really challenge some very deeply held beliefs that they have?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">She adds: \u2018I, frankly, always felt completely mystified and baffled by the existence of religion. I really didn\u2019t ever understand what it was good for \u2013 and making this film has really, really challenged that for me \u2026 and transformed my understanding.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018And I have so much more respect and understanding for religions and religious faiths than I ever had before.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">For his part, Greaves \u2013 the most recognizable face of TST \u2013 says: \u2018This is the infancy of The Satanic Temple.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018In our own humble little way, we are changing the world. More and more, as time goes on, people are seeing that we are a genuine movement. This would be very difficult to maintain if, somewhere in any of our minds, those of us who were actively working on this, we didn\u2019t truly believe in every element of what we\u2019re doing. And to be doing this as anything other than an authentic expression of who we are, I just can\u2019t see doing that without being psychotic \u2013 which, I guess, is a theory.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-6616577\/The-rise-Satanism-America-members-dont-ACTUALLY-worship-devil-push-activism.html\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No longer a secretive cult, members of The Satanic Temple now openly focus on activism, religious pluralism and social diversity. BUT NOT devil worship<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":118531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the_satanic_salute"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=182592"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182603,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182592\/revisions\/182603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/118531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=182592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=182592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=182592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}