#shane bugbee

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.

I’ve [Stephen Bradford Long] been a member of The Satanic Temple (TST) since December 2017, and in that time there’ve been occasional accusations of crypto-fascism, alt-rightism, and Nazism against TST by both outsiders and former members. This article is about why I choose to remain in the Satanic Temple despite these accusations, and why I find these accusations lacking in credibility.

Long is not really going to address the full context of crypto-fascism and alt-righterism in this piece, but he wants to make you aware that he's aware of it.

Before I continue with this discussion, though, I need to make a few clarifications: I am in no way a leader or spokesperson for TST. I’m not even part of a local chapter – I’m a solo Satanist who identifies with the Satanic Temple. This article is not written from a position of official leadership, but from my limited perspective as a rank-and-file member. It’s likely that, due to my limited perspective, that there are details that I miss.

This disclaimer is probably necessary because The Satanic Temple wraps its actual members up in "definitely not a giant red flag for a supposed religious organization" non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). The latest version of the membership agreement they're rolling out to local chapters congregations is likely why we're starting to see another schism now (July 2021), but which specific NDA Long was operating under—or avoiding—in May 2020 when he wrote this, only TST would know.

That said, I do have a bias: I have a fairly popular Satanic blog, podcast, and a big social media presence in the TST community. I consider myself good friends with Penemue, (Director of Ministry, Executive Producer of TST TV, former International Council Member) and we text regularly. I’ve had quite a few TST leaders on my show. My articles are frequently shared by Lucien Greaves and the official TST twitter account, and while I wouldn’t consider Lucien close enough to be called a friend, I do admire him, and he has guested on my podcast twice so far.

Long's situation has changed. Per his Twitter, as of July 2021, Long is now on the Ordination Council of The Satanic Temple Ministry, so it's possible that he's now wrapped up in an even more restrictive NDA than most people. He may not even be able to respond to this if he wanted to.

Going back to "stuff not talked about", Priest Penemue, who now openly goes by Greg Stevens again, is a one-time Breitbart contributor who was on very familiar terms with Milo Yiannopolous and Mike Cernovich. Cernovich was already a #GamerGate veteran, open misogynist, and rape apologist at that point; Cernovich also utilizes far-right attorney, "anti-antifa" and anti-#BlackLivesMatter opinion-haver, eugenics enthusiast Marc Randazza.

Now, Randazza will come up later in Long's blog for Long's theory of "contagion", but it is notable that Randazza isn't just a piece of shit because he goes out of his way to represent pieces of shit; he's also, himself, very much a piece of shit.

Back to Long.

Finally, nothing in this article means I won’t be compelled to leave in the future. While I think it’s unlikely, it’s possible that TST will make some extraordinary mishap that will require me to follow my conscience and distance myself from the organization. As a Satanist, that option must always be available to me. While I haven’t seen anything in the organization so far that conflicts with my conscience, that doesn’t mean there won’t be something that does in the future. With that out of the way, let’s begin.

So, Doubt.gif, but yeah, let's really begin.

Lucien’s Moment of Cringe

Back in 2003, before he was Lucien Greaves and instead known as Doug Mesner, Lucien had a cringy podcast conversation with Shane Bugbee in which he said some concerning things, and many of the accusations against TST orbit around this moment. Joseph Laycock chronicles the cringiest moments on page 69 in his book Speak of the Devil:

[Book excerpt] The tone of the podcast is sophomoric and intentionally offensive in keeping with Bugbee’s philosophy of Satanism. In the exchange in question, Mesner states, “It’s OK to hate Jews” if this hatred is based in contempt for their supernatural beliefs but that, “It’s not OK to hate Jews” if this hated is based in racism or ideas of eugenics [emphasis added]. Bugbee then asks Mesner, “Do you like Satanic Jews?” Mesner answers, “Satanic Jews are fine.” Bugbee replies, “One drop of Jew blood means you ain’t breaking bread with me, motherfucker.” At this, someone on the podcast can be heard laughing. Mesner starts to respond, at which point Bugbee accuses Mesner of being Jewish himself. In what may have been an attempt to disarm the situation, Mesner then replies, “Look at me, I’m an Aryan king.” This is met with more laughter. This exchange is followed by a more serious discussion by Bugbee’s wife, Amy, about how Jews exaggerated the numbers killed in the Holocaust and have exploited it for political gain, during which Mesner is silent.

“Cringe,” huh?

So, to be clear, Stephen Bradford Long is quoting Joseph Laycock, a researcher of new religious movements who was in the middle of a book about how great neo-Satanism is when news of this broke big again in 2018. Long relies on Laycock to have listened to the clip and lets Laycock characterize an event that Long admits is why so many other accusations "orbit" around TST rather than, apparently, listening to it himself and trying to find out more information.

In lieu of access to any of the primary information for yourself, this would be understandable. But if you read more of that section from the book, it's immediately apparent that Laycock did some pretty shoddy work.

Now, you may think it's nitpicking, but this is not a podcast. This is a 24-hour live Internet radio broadcast. People are calling in while listening. More importantly, it didn't take place Sep. 11, 2002; this was 2003.

You can tell from other things like archived Web posts promoting it and printed materials, but also the other conversations that take place throughout the stream, like arguing about the Democratic presidential primary field and people referring to the current year being "2003".

So let's establish two things:

Shane Bugbee, Lucien Greaves, and Amy Bugbee talked about a ton of stuff in the course of 24 hours

Laycock listened to approximately none of those other things before trying to exculpate Lucien and resorting to "some of Lucien's best friends are Jewish."

The fact that Laycock didn't know which year it was happening might explain why he offers up that little detail in defense of Lucien in regards to eugenics.

Certainly, Lucien is not making eugenics-based arguments, right?

Right?

Ascertaining truth directly

Look at me, I'm an Aryan King!

For those who don't know, Lucien Greaves' real name is "Douglas Alexander Misicko," which means when he gets himself added as an intervenor in an ACLU court case, he still does so as "Doug Misicko." Back in 2003 and for some time after, he was using the pseudonym "Doug Mesner", and he has used at least two others online since then, but since TST people mostly know him as "Lucien Greaves", we'll keep using that.

Some caveats: that transcript in the above Wiki link was auto-generated and as of July 2021, has still to be fully manually corrected. While it gets the gist well, please don't take it on faith that it's correct. Also, over the course of the 24-hours, the timestamps stay in order but do drift a bit from the Archive.org audio timer.

However, it’s a roadmap for you to find something and follow along with your own ears. You can hear for yourself what grotesquely racist song they put on to close out that segment. You can hear for yourself how they got into that conversation.

It turns out the caller, a Holocaust-denying metal musician from Vancouver named Gerod Staaf a.k.a. Gzerod Von Staaf brings up Lucien's favorite subject: eugenics.

Lucien agrees that the Nazis ruined the concept for everyone in the Second World War and brings up an apparently practiced phrase: "Threw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak."

We know this is not an off-the-cuff remark or merely sleepless thought because in hour nine, the stream plays a pre-recorded interview that Lucien did with conservative radio host Ken Hamblin, "The Black Avenger", to promote their upcoming stream.

08:07:56 Doug Misicko: Right? Well, I think people kind of throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, after World War Two. 08:08:03 Ken Hamblin: Okay. 08:08:03 Doug Misicko: Ideas like eugenics and social Darwinism. They threw out everything positive that we could have possibly gained from those along with it. 08:08:12 Ken Hamblin: Well, eugenics is, I would think eugenics is a world apart from whatever the philosophy of Might is Right is about. Or does it- Or does it tie in by saying, "Might is right, because I have the power and you're subhuman" or what 08:08:28 Doug Misicko: No... Not exactly, I mean, the book takes an anti-totalitarian stance in place- in places, but I think sometimes you have to choose what your brand of totalitarianism is going to be. I mean, right now, we might live in what you would call a mob rule. And we're becoming overpopulated. There are no rules against breeding. And I don't think there should be rules, perhaps, on real generalized racial grounds like they were doing in Nazi Germany, but perhaps just merely on qualification grounds.

Hamblin asks for clarification: "How about a person with a low IQ, who is not likely to be able to give a child the quality of husbanding that is necessary for the competitiveness of the 21st century?"

"I do believe that that type of person should not be allowed to breed," Lucien answers.

So going back to "this moment of cringe"—the famous one where Lucien talks over the caller to be able to assert that "antisemitism is not a dirty word"—before they get to that moment, they're already having a lovely conversation about how too many stupid people are having kids. The next step is natural.

03:05:33 Gerod Staaf: Now. What about the concept of eugenics? Do we see that being implemented anytime in the US? 03:05:39 Doug Misicko: I don't know. It would have to be- You know, I think eventually there's gonna have to be population control. And that's where it'll start. Then if you're going to start controlling the population, then you can start getting into the argument about in what direction you control the population, why don't you use it towards a eugenics end? Or at least curb dysgenics [emphasis added] which is opposite eugenics. For those who don't know, the concept being that the stupidest people breed the most. It seems axiomatic at this point, it's just, hey, a given truism.

We've talked before about how cheery Lucien is in his conversation with Grand Dragon of the KKK and White Aryan Resistance founder Tom Metzger, and how Lucien tries to convince Metzger that the best way for Metzger to achieve his genocide of all the Black people would be to institute sterilization based on IQ in the name of eugenics.

So this stuff is not incidental to Lucien's philosophy. And it's not something you can pretend was just a "moment" of poor judgment or going along with others.

Five years later for his Process.org blog, Lucien utilizes a facetious counterargument but is still writing about how much he hates that stupid people are allowed to have babies.

He also seems to complain that every time he argues in favor of it, people associate him with all of the fucking things eugenics and forced sterilization have actually been used for in history.

[Lucien Greaves, as Doug Mesner writes] One needs to demonstrate proper cognizance to scrub toilets or pick produce, but nobody is too simple to have a child. Motherhood may be the most important job a person could take, and yet nobody is too incompetent to be denied the task. And it’s a good thing, too – for who would decide who is fit to breed and who is not? Selective breeding of any kind is eugenics all over again, and anybody who even mutters that foul word must be ridiculed from discourse as neo-Nazi swine. Only a fascist could be so vile as to suggest that the laws of heredity could be employed toward the betterment of the gene-pool or – disregarding any such lofty notions of “improvement” – cessation of the propagation of severe dysfunctions from retardations to psychopathy. Anybody who would recommend that parents who are unable to afford housing, food, or clothing – or is otherwise incapable of caring for a child – should thus abstain from having children is nothing more than a megalomaniacal totalitarian. You have merely to point at her and say aloud, “Hitler!” and your argument is won. Breeding restrictions are a slippery slope, and it is absolutely inevitable that if the rapist is sterilized, so too will be all non-Aryans. Consensus means nothing here, because in a democracy “all men are created equal” – except when applying for jobs, or being accepting into schools, or looking for a loan…. But breeding is different. You can’t stratify there. An alcoholic inbred could possibly produce the next Einstein, (Though, I suppose, the alcoholic would be unlikely to be an actual inbred. There are laws against inbreeding. Inbreeding is known to propagate genetic defects, but that’s where we need to draw the line, or it’s head first down that slippery slope.) and infertile couples should care nothing of the background details of their sperm donor.

Yeah, but that's 2008. Surely Lucien changed his mind after that, right?

Well, probably still not by 2013 when Lucien brought in Shane Bugbee to help him launch TST.

[Tweet thread]

That's Lucien Greaves, Shane Bugbee, and TST co-owner "Malcolm Jarry" (real name, Cevin Soling) standing together in mid-2013.

People like Joseph Laycock and Stephen Bradford Long take great pains to excuse Lucien because he's not as bad as Shane Bugbee, and Shane was the real racist, antisemite, and absolutely horrible person, right?

Well, despite moving to different parts of the country, Lucien stayed close with Shane for another 10 years after all of that and tried to get Shane work shaping the media-rollout of TST in the beginning.

By 2013, do you think Lucien and Shane even stopped loving Might Is Right? Do you think they pitched it together to be the foundation of TST?

It's not until mid-2018 that the website Lucien promotes throughout the MIR stream finally goes dark. It was called "dysgenics.com".

This is the main ad they run for it, a recording Lucien himself saying:

Natural selection and modern civilization have ceased to exist. Today we live in a world overpopulated with bottom feeders. The pool is overfilled with the dregs, there is no inherent value on human life. The value is earned and most people are running a deficit. They're worse than worthless. They're counter-productive. What can be done? www.dysgenics.com.

We can't know what's in his heart, but throughout his time as the voice of TST, Lucien has continued to publicly speak about how the problem isn't with "Nazis", and has argued people shouldn't oppose Nazis with force. The problem, according to Lucien, is that certain hapless racists are inbred, stupid rednecks who should be mocked. Stupidity and trashiness are still the problem for him; dapper and well-spoken genocide, eh, not so much.

All right, so that's a pretty deep dive, but we have not gotten to worst yet, so let's jump back into Stephen Bradford Long's blog.

Let me go ahead and get this out of the way: in my opinion, this whole conversation [ed. he means just this particular exchange] – including Lucien’s part in it — is gross and unacceptable. I think it’s reasonable to be concerned by this conversation. While Lucien doesn’t take as hard a stance as Shane Bugbee and his wife, he also doesn’t do much to mitigate the rampant bigotry on display in this public conversation, and I personally see that as a failure. I think that when we see racism on display, we should oppose it. Lucien might have attempted to do that by insisting he doesn’t have a problem with Satanic Jews, but it’s a milquetoast attempt at best. But also, in my opinion, Lucien is not demonstrating deliberate anti-Semitism in this conversation, but poorly articulated anti-theism. It’s all too easy for a broad anti-theist, anti-religion sentiment to be interpreted as anti-specific-ethnic-religious-community. Anti-theists (ideally) don’t object to the ethnic or cultural identity, but to the supernatural beliefs that they deem dangerous. Perhaps I’m being too charitable in my interpretation of Lucien’s words, but I don’t hear him being consciously anti-Jewish, because he clearly specifies that he doesn’t have a problem with Satanic Jews. That suggests it’s the supernatural beliefs he objected to, not the identity. Shane Bugbee and his wife, on the other hand, are unapologetically antisemitic. While Lucien is expressing poorly articulated anti-theism, that doesn’t make it harmless in impact. He might not have intended to come off as anti-Semitic, but the impact of his words is still dismissive and insensitive to a persecuted religious minority. It’s entirely possible to do something racist even when we don’t consciously mean to. That’s what it means to live in a culture of systemic racism and bigotry. So, to recap: 1. I think this whole podcast conversation is gross and unacceptable. 2. I think he’s trying to articulate anti-theism, not anti-Semitism. 3. Regardless of his intent, the impact of his words is still anti-semitic. This entire conversation is made more complicated by the fact that it was recorded to commemorate the release of a new addition of Ragnar Redbeard’s protofascist booklet Might is Right, which Lucien illustrated. I think it’s reasonable to be concerned about this situation. Lucien’s position isn’t exactly clear through this whole episode.

"Complicated", "concerned", "position isn't exactly clear"

They are there. To promote. An antisemitic. White supremacist. Misogynistic. Protofascist. Book.

A book that Lucien Greaves illustrated.

It has a book that has inspired white supremacists for decades, and was cited by name while the 2019 Gilroy Garlic Festival mass shooter stream himself killing people.

This is the context. The position Lucien is taking throughout the entirety of the stream is that Social Darwinism and eugenics is good, and Lucien clearly does not have a problem with literal Neo-Nazis and white nationalists, including those responsible for assaulting and murdering people because those are the people he sought out to bring on and interview.

If you're on a desktop browser, this will be easier, but try searching for "Jew" in this (uncorrected) transcript, and if you don't trust the transcription, listen for yourself.

If you think Lucien's position isn't clear, search for the unredacted versions of "n****r"; "r*t*rd"; or "f*g" and find some clarity.

02:35:32 Doug Misicko: You got n****r sodomites on call 02:35:34 Shane Bugbee: God damn right, motherfucker. They're cheap. Life is cheap bitch. It's about the cost of a fucking nickel bullet. You remember that motherfucker. And I ain't talking any shit. I know people everywhere.

And:

10:14:04 Doug Misicko: I don't want to have a kid if it's gonna be a r*t*rd or anything like that. 10:14:08 Psychic: You don't what?! 10:14:09 Doug Misicko: I don't want to have a kid if it's gonna be a r*t*rd or anything like that. 10:14:13 Psychic: I can't understand what you are saying... 10:14:14 Doug Misicko: Well, you know, if I was gonna have a kid, I wouldn't want to be a r*t*rd or anything. I need some consultation.

And:

11:16:57 Hart Fisher: Been like a little cripple time down here at the RadioFreeSatan.com. 11:17:00 Doug Misicko: Yeah, we love the r*t*rds. 11:17:02 Hart Fisher: Oh, very important. Kids of Whitney High. 11:17:05 Doug Misicko: Right. Make some beautiful music. 11:17:09 Shane Bugbee: First ones in the fuckin showers. First go the r*t*rds and then go the Jews. 11:17:17 Doug Misicko: The r*t*rds are entertaining. 11:17:19 Shane Bugbee: Next is the n****rs and sp*cs and then more Jews.

If your defense is, "At least Lucien didn't talk as coarsely as Shane did", that is an incredibly weird excuse to give someone. Seriously arguing, "We should sterilize all people with low IQs" is actually worse than just the r-slur. But yeah, Lucien did both.

We promise you, no matter how much more context you want to give this stuff, it will make it worse. There is always more, and it's always worse.

A Horseshit Explanation

But back to Long's blog:

I reached out to Lucien for comment and he emailed me an internal TST statement that was sent to chapter heads. The statement is long, but I think the whole thing needs to be read and digested in full:

So, apologies for giving you so much information up to this point. Hopefully, you have taken some breaks if you've needed it. But having done so, it's going to be immediately apparent just how much of this statement that Long quotes in-full is absolute horseshit.

Subtly, because you may miss the history, Long is writing this blog in May 2020, but TST just recycled the statement they put out in Lucien's name back in 2018 as part of that schism, and you can tell by the reference to "15 years", which would be 2003.

Another subtle but actual falsehood they try to sneak in: "I was an ignorant kid" and "still in my early twenties" - in reality, Lucien was 28. This matches public information, but it's also what he says himself while prank calling the suicide hotline - because there's always more and it's always worse.

But without further ado, the recycled 2018 statement (emphasis added in each case):

Dear Chapter Heads, It was recently brought to the attention of The Satanic Temple that a snippet from a 15-year old “Might is Right” radio show featuring our co-founder Lucien Greaves (aka Doug Mesner) is being widely distributed via social media. This is not the first time this audio has been shared within the community as a point of concern and Lucien has spoken on the matter each time but given the expansion of our organization, we feel it necessary to provide a more formal communication to be made available for your own edification as well as a helpful reference for addressing the concerns of your members.

This audio, which was heavily edited out of context, was recorded in 2003, well over a decade before the creation of The Satanic Temple (TST). It was taken from a 24-hour radio show featuring Lucien which covered a broad range of topics, music, and interviews with various subversive personalities of the time. In the clip, Lucien disparages Jewish religious practices in a manner that the organization and Lucien acknowledge as both inappropriate and unfortunate; however, he does clarify that it is reprehensible that people would blame a bloodline for the questionable behavior and supernatural beliefs of a religion and we should be especially cognizant of the fact that what our critics are saying he said isn’t actually the point or content of what’s being communicated.

Lucien wishes to communicate the following:

“Even as I may be defending myself against what that material was NOT, I still must admit that I today do not agree with my opinions expressed then in any way. To me, back then, I was speaking of people who would take, say, Leviticus literally and try to impose its laws upon the world. I grew up as ignorant white trash in a deeply divided and violent area which heavily affected my world view. At the time of this recording, while still in my early twenties, I thought that the triumph of Laveyan Satanism was that it de-racialized a “survival of the fittest” productive, merit-based social darwinism. I used to hold the position that religious superstition shouldn’t be “normalized” as I saw it as such a problematic force in the world. My assumption then was that if we scoffed at such expressions openly, those expressing such things might think about their superstitions more clearly and abandon them. The founding of TST was ultimately a refutation of that viewpoint, a product of my complete removal from that mode of thinking. To me, there were “the religious,” and they were the majority, and then there were the beleaguered nonreligious who suffered from the dogmatic impositions of the religious. I would speak of superstitions in equally dismissive terms with unfortunate lack of concern, due to no real understanding, of familial/cultural attachments, or the effect of such rhetoric upon minority religious groups. I was an ignorant kid with a lot of outrage and a big idiot mouth that received just as many threats to my life by Nazis as I do today. TST will always be for anybody, of any background, who identifies with the values we espouse, and today, you can count on me to vigorously defend any religious group’s right to equal representation and expression anywhere.”

As Satanists who are members of the Satanic Temple, we recognize the relevance of our Sixth Tenet in this matter: “People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.”

We ask you to recognize that people do change their opinions over the course of 15 years, and Lucien is no exception. Our organization, its members, and all levels of leadership remain committed to the spirit of equality and compassion in Satanism and reject all forms of bigotry, hatred, and activity that conflicts with our community values and tenets.

So, end of recycled statement.

And wow, they are really relying on you not knowing jack shit about the rest of that 24-hour broadcast or the circumstances behind it, huh?

But those people that excuse doesn't work on don't stay to tell other people, and those the excuse does work on stick around and keep defending it, like Stephen Bradford Long does.

I think Lucien made a mistake in this whole incident. I also accept his apology as reasonable and sincere. I’m content to move on. Yet, despite Lucien’s continued attempts to clarify his positions, TST’s accusers pull this incident out as proof of Lucien’s depravity, and his apparent antisemitism, fascism, Nazism, or what have you.

"Made a mistake."

It's interesting how similar this language is to abusive pastors or just men in reactionary evangelical communities, regardless of how those men may have hurt people for years as part of a consistent pattern, and despite no real evidence of change or restitution beyond saying tearfully, "I'm really sorry. Please forgive me." Except instead of a Bible verse, Lucien, or someone writing for him, pleads the tenets.

The way TST characterizes the exchange that people know about, it's as though it's just an oversight in 2003, a lapse, and one solitary conversation where Lucien didn't "push back against bigotry enough," or whatever.

But as we've talked about, Lucien has continued to do things in the name of "free speech" that consistently only work in one direction: in support of the far-right and their enablers.

Tracking his mindset, as late as 2016, Lucien still thinks it's terrible for an event to disinvite a violent Neo-Nazi Satanist like Augustus Sol Invictus from a speaking panel they're both on. But he also thinks that civil courts should be used to bankrupt people for truly unacceptable speech (see: the Haute Macabre interview, but also, um, what they're doing to us).

"Free speech" also means Lucien and Cevin "Malcolm Jarry" Soling can, as TST, say whatever the fuck reactionary bullshit about opposing public schools (but never cops or prisons) or supporting the Israel state's violence without asking anybody else. But no one else can say anything without asking them first, including about whether your TST chapter or you as a TST member can apply the seven tenets to oppose white supremacy and police abuse.

[Tweet]

What else do you think this section of the new member code is all about?

Members may not, without prior consent from Executive Ministry [ed. just Lucien Greaves or Malcolm Jarry], engage in activities as agents of TST or participate in any group within TST, where such activities imply or encourage the impression of collaboration or official alliance with non-TST entities, even when the aims and values of those entities appear clearly aligned with those of TST.

A guess: The ex[?]-chapter in Boston got fed up and disregarded TST's directive from May 29, 2020, about not supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, so on June 20, 2020, Boston posted to their Facebook that, yeah, the struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions, and that means full, unequivocal support for Black Lives Matter and opposition to white supremacy.

With the new contract, now you're in violation if you or your chapter speak out in favor of something Cevin and Lucien don't approve of, and if you think it's too ambiguous to conclude that's what it means, the point of the power dynamics is that ambiguity always helps the people who have power and hurts those without it.

If they say you violated it, you violated it. If you want to appeal, you can go through all the proper channels they also control and they can ultimately ignore as it suits them.

"What do the owners of The Satanic Temple care about, and what sort of people do they absolutely not care about?" is actually of critical importance to anyone donating their time, money, and creativity to making Lucien and Cevin's companies more profitable and influential.

The Conversion Left vs. The Contagion Left

[Stephen Bradford Long writes] This is where shit gets complicated. Let me back up and provide some of my background and thinking on leftist discourse in general. I’m starting to think that the left has two nearly irreconcilable worldviews, and that this rift is causing incalculable upheaval in leftist communities. I will call these two views Contagion and Conversion.

We've arrived at what is actually the crux of Long's whole argument, but after spending a ton of time getting to this point, we're mostly not going to engage with it for the simple reason that his prior assumptions in this specific situation are demonstrably false, and therefore are irrelevant.

Long says that the Left should include "reformed criminals, Nazis, racists, former white supremacists etc."; the problem is Long doesn't seem capable or willing of doing the due diligence to investigate how bad someone was or how much someone has actually changed, and therefore he misunderstands why someone wouldn't want to be around former* racists.

Long admits that he himself used to be a "far right, racist, homophobic, libertarian shitgibbon", and given his stance on this issue, this is not a surprise. He would go on to interview famous transphobe and alt-lite darling Katie Herzog, before coming to the realization thanks to her: "I'm a Satanist, Not A Leftist". So if you are a Leftist, he probably was never a great person to listen to for advice.

Take Long here with as much salt as you feel appropriate:

I don’t believe that Lucien was an ideological fascist, but if he was, I would still celebrate his change of heart demonstrated in the statement above. I would see his obvious leftist sentiments as a victory for the left and for minorities, understanding that his conversion means one less bigoted white man who can exact harm on defenseless minorities. I would welcome him into the fold with open arms.

Citation needed on any of those "obvious leftist sentiments" as opposed to "liberal" tending toward "classically liberal."

It's all very good to say, "I'm different now. I grew up. I've changed" as (paraphrasing) Lucien was quoted in that Breitbart article by TST Director of Ministry Greg Stevens.

But that makes another relevant aspect of the Might Is Right 24-hour stream is they interview George Burdi, who also said he says his ways.

The SPLC had interviewed Burdi in 2001, too, so a lot of people liked this narrative. After being imprisoned in 1997 for the assault of an antiracist activist woman and avoiding more prison by selling off his Neo-Nazi record company, Burdi said he renounced white supremacy. Burdi had a new band and it wasn't a reference to The Church of the Creator's "Racial Holy War" anymore; Burdi had two Black band members and was even engaged to an East Indian woman!

But if you listen to Burdi closely, there's a lot he doesn't say, and it sounds a lot less like he came to a realization that he was fundamentally wrong about the way he looked at the world than it does that he was facing tremendous consequences in his life for openly sharing and pursuing those views.

In 2017, Burdi admitted he had never fully left the white nationalist movement (~8:00 in). He still thought "multiculturalism" was bad, "homogenous societies" would be better, and calmly went through his ethno-nationalist screed that would necessitate tremendous violence visited on millions if not billions of people.

Burdi ends that section of the 2017 interview on a note about how he'd either send his children to a private school in Detroit or homeschool them, which is remarkably similar to the things TST owner Cevin Soling once told Russia Today about when public schools really went downhill.

[Soling says] What I think the transformation that took- happened, was that we went from a homogeneous population in these schools to a heterogeneous one [emphasis added]. And so where you have a common culture in a school, where everyone sort of comes from the same background, it’s easier to suppress and keep people in line, but when people have different cultures, greater efforts have to be made to basically keep people in line and enforce the conformity that is demanded and required in public schools. They’re not good places to learn and they’re not good places to be.

When you wonder why TST is getting involved in weird stuff like the Mahanoy (Pennsylvania) School Board and selling "Fuck The Mahanoy School Board" merch, it basically comes down to "Cevin Soling really hates public schools."

A defender of TST and of Soling might want to point out that just because Soling and George Burdi agree on one thing, and have used similar reasoning, doesn't mean the whole push to end public schools is actually wrong.

But it's more that the entire modern right wing is built on opposition to public school integration, and the sort of people who call for the abolition of schools because they're like prisons while still supporting actual prisons are just giving their hand away about what bothers them.

In fact, Soling also had a very long conversation with Stefan Molyneux, yes, that one, about the benefits of homeschooling when promoting his documentary "The War on Kids". He did an interview with at least one other homeschool right wing libertarian on that extended tour a decade ago, possibly more.

But here's the SPLC summary of home-school aficionado Molyneux:

A libertarian internet commentator and alleged cult leader who amplifies "scientific racism," eugenics and white supremacism to a massive new audience, Stefan Molyneux operates within the racist so-called “alt-right” and pro-Trump ranks.

"That was a long time ago," apologists will say.

Ok, sure.

The Daily Caller quoted Soling about homeschool initiative in April 2020 in his role as "president of Ideological Diversity", "a Student Organization at Harvard Kennedy School", which its description makes clear is about exactly the sort of euphemism you're thinking of.

By the way, the only other media covering that event was the Foundation for Economic Education, a Koch-funded "right-wing libertarian economic think-tank".

Turtles, all the way down.

Approaching the End

So as we get into the home-stretch (finally!), let's look at the sort of things Long has to say in defense of Greaves:

I think that, in Lucien’s case, we see all of the aspects of the Contagion Left at work. We see people assuming he’s a fascist and then expecting that to be disproven, before his fascism was even established as true. Lucien champions diversity and pluralism, yet despite that he is tarnished by some gross comments he made twenty years ago. Even if he was a fascist, I don’t care. In my opinion, his present character speaks for itself. If he was a fascist, I celebrate that he is (clearly) not one any longer. I see his previous attitudes as redeemed by his current convictions, rather than vice-versa. The theory of contagion applies to other accusations against Lucien and TST. When he hired Marc Randazza, Alex Jones’s attourney, pro bono for a free speech suit [emphasis added], he was suddenly tarnished by that association. The Right Wing cooties infected Lucien, despite the fact that, if Marc is right-wing, he is actively working against his own interests by aiding TST. Again, no one celebrates the possibility of Lucien’s leftism rubbing off on Randazza. The contagion only flows in a single direction, rendering us all fearful and ineffective. I think that nearly every attack on Lucien Greaves and TST is an example of Contagion Leftism. It’s not about creating a better Temple, it’s about fear of infection. Are there valid critiques of TST? Of course. Those criticisms, more often then not, come from members and leaders who care deeply about the future of TST.

At this point, it's not clear what there remains to say.

Long minimizes what it was Lucien was actually doing in 2003—because Long never bothered to investigate it for himself, even though it was fairly easy to have done so. Long seems to willfully ignore all of the people who have investigated it and said, "Go read and/or listen to this."

Long says, even if Lucien was a fascist then, clearly he's changed. However, the great schism in 2018 was related to criticism that Lucien had not changed and continued to be friendlier and more forgiving of virulent bigots and their enablers, and has continued to treat people like Andy fucking Ngo as a credible source, reserving his deeper criticism for antifascists who are "the greatest threat to our social stability."

And as for Marc Randazza, again, the problem isn't just that he represents bad clients but that he actively seeks out the likes of Alex Jones, Mike Cernovich, and Andrew Anglin of The Daily Stormer. He is himself actually a piece of shit, and in bad standing with a lot of state bars as well as the US Patent Office. We are supposed to take TST's word that Randazza is working for them pro bono on a "free speech suit" when they don't have open books to demonstrate where money donated to them is and isn't going.

Why? Why would you take them at their word? Their "free speech" lawsuit is specifically about getting Lucien Greaves' Twitter account a blue checkmark so he and other "political figures" like Laura Loomer and Richard Spencer stop being discriminated against.

Why would you believe that Randazza works for them for free when he's also their go-to to threaten a lawsuit about Mississippi changing its flag away from the Confederate design, but also, he's their go-to guy for patent office work. Maybe because Randazza lets clients use pseudonyms on federal documents and still turns in the paperwork.

Long thinks that Leftists believe in "right-wing cooties" as opposed to Leftists being people who have quite a bit of experience dealing with the far right and who know how dangerous they are to the sort of people they want to assault and abuse.

A Thought Experiment

Just, as a thought experiment mind you, imagine that instead of "right wing" people, we're talking about a group whose highest leadership just keeps continually palling around, boosting, and defending pedophiles and the sexual assault of young teenage girls. (note: in the Might Is Right stream, Shane Bugbee does literally, repeatedly comes back to this theme.)

But instead of just talking about it, the group's leaders invite on a bunch of actual, convicted, and unapologetic sexual child abusers to be interviewed, play hours of rambling pre-recorded speeches by people like Jimmy Savile to fill dead air time (in reality, it's Charles Manson and others), and you spend the next decades of your life talking about it, and defending their free speech rights, minimizing the harm they've caused and threat they pose ("The Catholic Church is way worse").

But, weirdly, almost exclusively their free speech rights are what you're interested in and not anyone with any other interests, like say unions, trans people, or folk who criticize police.

Imagine if this hypothetical group utilized a lawyer who disproportionately represented accused pedophiles, but the lawyer himself kept talking about his appreciation for "hot young teens" and such himself, maybe not going all the way to say it, but constantly revealing where his sympathies lay. (In reality, Marc Randazza has argued in favor of legalizing child porn on First Amendment grounds.)

In this hypothetical, exactly how safe do you think people with children would feel leaving their kids alone with leaders or with any organization whose members repeatedly made excuses for their leaders' past behavior, even as similar incidents were ongoing around and within the organization?

Would it actually be an important distinction to make whether the leaders felt a certain way about children or just didn't consider children's safety a priority?

To be clear: The Satanic Temple has figures who have spent 20 years doing something like that; but instead of abusing children, it's people who want to enact genocide, create a white ethnostate, pursue "Western Chauvinism", and so forth.

That was supposed to be the only point to this hypothetical: what's something absolutely indefensible other than genocidal white supremacists no one could possibly defend?

But, there's always more, and it's always worse, so in parallel to this thought experiment, as you saw, there are certain example of literal crossover. It also ends up being literally true that Lucien has been defending the shuttered False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF), and continues to defend it via the Grey Faction and his personal Patreon.

So we're not saying that literally Lucien has a history of defending child sexual abuse and abusers.

But the FMSF has indeed been accused of that, as recently as having key figure Elizabeth Loftus popping up to provide expert testimony for the defense of the likes of Jerry Sandusky, Harvey Weinstein, and Bill Cosby but people all the way back to Ted Bundy, too. Their effect for years was to provide yet another excuse—for cops, courts, and various authority figures—to argue that victims of abuse, particularly children, were not to be trusted.

And of course, back in 1993, two of FMSF's board members did give an interview to the Dutch pro-pedophilia magazine Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia kinda hyping up the whole... sexual abuse of children thing.

Still, for the better part of three decades, the FMSF continued to—by default—disbelieve that children were victims of abuse they remembered or understood after the fact, and to believe and welcome in the tens of thousands of adults accused of being abusers. Apparently, Lucien still admins the independent Facebook group "False Memory Syndrome Action Network" that the FMSF newsletter once promoted, under yet another pseudonym of his: "Mikoto Niikura", and as mentioned previously, wrote a response attacking the journalist who reported critically on the FMSF after its closure.

Lucien, and The Grey Faction and The Satanic Temple itself, continue to attack and deride people who experience Disassociate Identity Disorder despite it being in the DSM, but also, as pseudonym "Konrad Josefsson", attack people who claim to have Complex PTSD because it's not in the DSM.

If you have a traumatic sexual experience at, say, a TST-related Lupercalia orgy, but you don't say anything about it immediately, or if you accuse another member of sexual assault, do you think Lucien or Mike Cernovich's friend Greg Stevens or other people they trust as leaders are going to believe you? What if another leader is the one who hurt you?

Every time you dig deeper at something, you find more connections, more demonstrations of certain sympathies, lack of sympathy for others, and absolutely no way for the volunteers who make up the organization to make change or hold those in power accountable except by leaving where internally they will be misrepresented in their absence as just another of "The Outraged" or maybe even publicly, anonymously attacked.

Despite what The Satanic Temple told Hemant Mehta in 2018, there's not really any evidence they ever stopped wrapping people up in Non-Disclosure Agreements and lots of evidence NDAs are still standard operating procedure for their business (or was it religion?), so it is literally impossible to imagine all of the fucked up shit people have experienced and kept quiet about because they fear a rich, financially opaque and utterly unaccountable leadership from going after them with punitive lawsuits.

[Speaking of which, if you've learned anything new about The Satanic Temple or its leadership from reading this, feel free to tip us so we can keep defending ourselves from their lawsuit]

Long asks, "So why do I remain in TST?"

And the answer is pretty clear.

Despite all of the people who have left over the years complaining about how TST leadership doesn't live up to its own values, how the court cases keep going badly, and how actually there are no signs of any improvement but probably just the opposite given how finances are now even more opaque than before, we cannot find reasons to expect positive change.

The issue is that the people who are in TST and have constructed an identity and social network around it don’t want to believe they bet on the wrong horse again, particularly if they already left an abusive religion of their upbringing.

"Why I haven't left The Satanic Temple" - because when your mind is already made up, you don't bother to go looking for any evidence, and it's a lot easier to stick with your priors no matter how much evidence is shown to you that they're wrong.

Hail Satan, hail yourself.