#brian werner

Some of you may even remember this Vice article from a few years back:

Ash Astaroth was then the director of the Temple's headquarters in Salem, and he was still assistant chapter head of the NYC chapter he had helped found.

So in 2016, The Satanic Temple found Astaroth useful for public propaganda, as in that Vice article, even though it wasn't necessarily representative of the organization as a whole. How could it be given who started TST (and who still owned it)?

Satanic Trump-supporter Brian Werner's sign speaks for itself, but Werner also believed abortion was "killing a child". Werner apparently found the death of Trayvon Martin very funny, or at least wanted to be edgy selling clothing about it.

TST owner Doug Misicko a.k.a. "Lucien Greaves" a.k.a. "Doug Mesner" reaching out to Shane Bugbee also says plenty, and we've covered that relationship elsewhere. Short version: "One drop of Jew blood means you ain't breakin' bread with me, motherfucker" is something Bugbee once said in the middle of a 24-hour stream with Misicko.

But Zach Black may be less familiar to most.

From The Village Voice in 2014:

Zach Black is a 38-year-old sushi chef in Northern California and a longtime Satanist. He started the Satanic International Network, the largest — though not the only — social media site for Satanists. He was a card-carrying member of the Church of Satan for nearly a decade, from 1994 to 2002. For the first few years after he joined, Anton LaVey was still alive. That made all the difference, Black says, and the church was much more “proactive.” Black is one of a group of disaffected ex-Church of Satan members who believe Gilmore was never supposed to become the church’s next leader. LaVey wanted to pass the torch to a man named Boyd Rice, an artist and writer who was a close friend, Black says. “But he turned it down. He didn’t want to do it. I’m not sure why.” ... Rice, meanwhile, went in a different direction. For nearly two decades, he was part of Death in June, a British neo-folk band that anti-racist groups have accused of supporting white nationalism. Rice has repeatedly denied being a racist or a Nazi sympathizer, a claim that was not bolstered in 2008, when an old video surfaced of him on a public-access TV show, describing Death in June as a proud “racialist” band.

In other words, Zach Black thought it was a shame this guy didn't take over Church of Satan, and therefore Black joined The Satanic Temple to get it going.

Proactive.

So, back to that Vice article, the message was "We're not like those other Satanists", the Church of Satan, sure, but also Brian Werner, Shane Bugbee, and Zach Black who got TST off the ground in 2013-2014.

This distinction, which also involved throwing those men under the bus and pretending they weren't relevant, was made explicit in that interview with Astaroth.

In 2014, as [Astaroth] prepared for a life explaining away his Lucifer tattoos with a spiel about liking the literary archetype, he discovered the Satanic Temple, an unrelated though similarly-named group. It was actually an anti-Satanic Temple rant that drew him to the organization, posted to YouTube by Brian Werner, a former death metal vocalist in the band Vital Remains. "It's become a very liberal, compassionate, borderline hippie-like outlook on politics and societal issues," said Werner. "If this guy is leaving the Satanic Temple for those reasons," Astaroth recalls thinking. "That's exactly where I need to be."

Those who were there during this era would remember Ash Astaroth because he was central to The Satanic Temple's operations, first in New York City, then in the headquarters in Salem as an employee of 64 Bridge LLC, or the "Salem Art Gallery".

In this capacity, Ash comes up in the Belle Plaine lawsuit depositions:

The Satanic Temple's owners "helped" Ash Astaroth by letting him move into Salem Art Gallery / TST's physical headquarters.

This sounds kind, but remember, they weren't just letting him stay as a friend: they worked him. They really worked him.

Read those depositions and email evidence from 2017, or just run a find for "Astaroth" to count how many times he's involved in a national campaign over TST's veterans' memorial. It is extensive.

Ash's housing was directly controlled by his employer.

When you are an organization that targets vulnerable populations for "help" and "opportunities" but you control their continued access to resources, no amount of smiles or love bombing or kind words will ever change the inherent threat of what's going on. Look no further than how this level of control can go to extremely dark places than recent events with the Black Hammer cult in Atlanta.

That's the context of the article that Ash Astaroth wrote after being "excommunicated" from The Satanic Temple in 2018, coinciding with the "Great Schism" where many chapters left the national Temple org over TST's owners' priorities and histories coming to light.

In the next post, we're going to reproduce Astaroth's article largely without commentary but with some content warnings where relevant. Then, at the end, we'll say a little more.

But as a general warning, watch out for self-harm and sui references, mental illness, abuse, and pet death.

Church Militant broadcasts pro-life, anti-gay, anti-feminist, Islam-fearing, human-caused-climate-change-denying orthodox Catholic news on its website churchmiltant.com and through social media using high-tech, professional production studios that rival those at local TV news stations. It has 35 full-time employees (and is hiring more) who publish about 10 stories and three videos every weekday. Its leader, Michael Voris, has compared Trump with Constantine, the Roman emperor whom he says was "not a moral man" but a "power-hungry egomaniac," but who saw it desirable to end the persecution of Christians. He was a human vessel who elevated Catholicism to the state religion, Voris said.

...

Many of Church Militant's headlines are similar to those on Breitbart News, the far-right news organization that White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon previously ran. Many of Breitbart's articles are cited on the Church Militant website. But unlike Breitbart, Church Militant is under a Christian, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. It's not affiliated with the Catholic Church, which has taken action to distance itself from Church Militant. And Voris said he doesn't think his organization's political statements are violating what he calls the "stupid" restriction on political campaign intervention for tax exemption from the Internal Revenue Service. Church and state have long been linked in this country, he said, and the combination of social media and Trump in the White House have altered the notion of mainstream media. "The entire established order has been thrown up into the air," Voris said. "What we say now has some credence. We're allowed into the discussion." Among the headlined stories on churchmiltant.com Friday were: "Bombshell: Priest at forefront of pushing birth control in Canada admits gay lifestyle," "Dismantling Obama's legacy," and "72 terrorists come to U.S. from seven banned Muslim-majority countries."

Now, given all the things there are to do in the world, why would The Satanic Temple give one of its limited number of fucks on something like this? Wouldn't you know it, Church Militant is represented by none other than lil ol' "free speech* lover" Marc Randazza.

Have we written about Marc Randazza before? We have. The most famous example of The Satanic Temple's collaboration with him was 2018, leading to the Great Schism that saw TST's most prominent local groups walk away then.

But for an explanation of why utilizing some lawyer in particular might matter to The Satanic Temple's leftist and otherwise antifascist members, please do read any of journalist Luke O'Brien's pieces on Marc Randazza

Anyway, here's the lower court docket.

And here is TST's amicus brief:

Feel free to read for yourself. (And to pester @RECAPtheLaw about getting an appeals court extension; until then, thanks again @cwdefllc).

Now, we know what The Satanic Temple will say: they just love free speech so much.

But ain't it funny how once again they're on the side of the likes of Randazza and Milo Yiannopoulus, as well as Donald Trump and Steve Bannon?

St. Michael's Media successfully signed a contract with a city vendor Thursday, hours after the appeals court announced its decision, according to the media outlet's attorney, Marc Randazza. "Baltimore hopefully learned a lesson in First Amendment law that its taxpayers now have to pay for," Randazza told the AP. St. Michael's has said its rally will include speeches by former President Donald Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon and far-right agitator Milo Yiannopoulos.

Ain't it funny how—despite claiming they just HAD to accept the pro bono help of Marc Randazza—they tried to raise $50,000(!!) for that same cause?

That's the same one where TST co-founder and owner Lucien Greaves compares himself to Laura Loomer and Richard Spencer, by the way.

Speaking of pro bono, presumably Matthew Kezahaya and his team didn't file this amicus brief for free. How much money did The Satanic Temple put in legal fees toward defending ultraconservative Catholic dominionists?

Surely that's an answerable question.

Pure principle and random chance that this keeps happening, huh?

Maybe Lucien Greaves will again claim he didn't bother to learn the views or circumstances behind his and Cevin Soling's decision to align with the interests of the ultra-right again That's what Lucien Greaves says about August Invictus being disinvited from a speaking panel (for inviting people to stab him at it)

By coincidence, August Sol Invictus is also a violent Neo-Nazi Satanist.

Also note the mention of The Satanic Temple's first "high priest" Brian Werner in that archived link.

Wonder why TST doesn't talk so much anymore about this guy who says he'd been close friends with Lucien Greaves for years?

"I'm not a fascist. I'm just willfully and repeatedly ignorant and constantly align myself with the interests of literal fascists" is certainly a defense Lucien Greaves could make. But at some point, it becomes a distinction without a difference, doesn't it? In any case, lovers of free speech that The Satanic Temple are, TST continues to sue us in federal court and still claim slander despite a judge disagreeing on explicitly First Amendment grounds. If you've learned anything new from this thread, please toss us a few bucks.

At the end we're left with two questions:

how many more amicus briefs in support of reactionaries like this are out there that The Satanic Temple isn't telling anyone about?