After 2 months eagerly awaiting my memberships arrival to the UK, it finally came. Hopefully a UK TST Shop opens in the future! I've considered myself a satanist for a few months now, but being a member of an organisation makes me feel like it's official.
As someone who avoids anything to do with religion I had alot of conflicting emotions about joining. On one hand, I agreed with the tenets, the philosophy and aligned myself with Satan as a symbol for self-empowerment and self-fulfillment. But on the other hand, it is still a religion, and I would be part of that religion. And religion had become a dirty word to me. But I continued my endeavour, I spent many months researching TST, Church of Satan and local satanic organisation and learnt alot of good, and alot of bad, both of which are integral to forming honost opinions, you can't accurately judge something solely based on positive information. I got alot of information from discussions on discord, reading and some amazing insights through podcasts.
I'm definitely a novice in both my knowledge and my practice, but I'm excited to learn, grow from inevitable mistakes and develop further as a satanist.