Fortean Times – September 2019

With the release ofPenny Lane’s fi lm Hail Satan?we despatched FT’s resident vicar,PETER

LAWS, to talk to SatanicTemple spokesperson and co-founder LUCIEN GREAVESabout

SatanicPanics, non-theistic religions and whether they’d ever see eye-to-eye about Jesus...

42 FT383

PL: Others have wanted to makefi lms or
reality series about the work of The Satanic
Temple (TST), andyetHail Satan? is thefi rst
timeyou ha ve really opened the doors to the
media. Why didyou feel the timewas right?

LG: Despite the theatrics, we’ve always
been discerning in our approach to media.
We are not interested in reality television-
styleexplorations of the everyday lives of
Satanists. TST is a movement whose time has
come, and wewant people to consider the
cultural factors that have made Satanism so
widely relevant today.We are not interested
in being“humanised” or“normalised,”
and we really do not care if our individual
lifestyles are adjudged respectable, deviant,
banal, or bizarre by any outside standards.
We assert our right to be who we are, and
we want people to have a more accurate
understanding of what that is(and isn’t).
The countless otherfi lmmakers that
approached us prior toPenny Lane hadvery
specific ideas regarding the type of story they
wanted to tell, and most of them showed little
regard for what TST actually is.Penny was not
dissuaded when I told her that we would not
stage events, engage in re-enactments, or
manufacture interpersonal conflicts for any
documentaryfi lm. She understood that we
are interested in issues, not celebrity. She did
not try to script the story before knowing what
the storywas. It wasn’t that thiswas the right
time, itwas thatPenny was the right director.

PL: What are the aims of thefi lm?

LG: In the beginning, Iwas encouraging Penny
to make a documentary entirely focused on
our Grey Faction campaign, a belated Satanist
response to the SatanicPanic of the 1980s
and 90s. A lot of Satanists who populated TST
in the beginning were ironically products of the
SatanicPanic, having grown up in the midst of
an anti-Satanist hysteria that developed into
a full-on witch-hunt. Many kids at that time
were told that the music they were listening
to, thegames they were playing, the books
they were reading, were all Satanic, which
had the unintended consequence of giving

some of them an affinity with Satanism,

while creating a feedback loop wherein the

æsthetic of their preferred entertainments

were absorbed into the æsthetic of Satanism.

The SatanicPanic saw the mainstreaming of

bizarre conspiracy theories involving alleged

Satanic cults that were said to be engaged in

infant sacrifice, cannibalism, and ritual abuse.

Deranged, pseudoscience-based therapists

in the mental health profession used hypnotic

regression, sodium amytal interviews, and

other discredited techniques for aiding in the

alleged recovery of“repressed memories” of

these activities – the same techniques used

to cultivate“memories” of alien abductions

and past lives – creating a whole network

of mistreated clients with delusions ofa

Satanic conspiracy. Nothing has been done

since then to address the role of mental

health care quackery in the SatanicPanic,

and the same pseudoscientific practices and

conspiracy theories are still propagated in the

mental health care profession today. TST’s

Grey Faction campaign has beenfi ghting for

rational mental health care oversight that

would address this problem. I thought it would

make anexcellent documentary to trace

the evolution of Satanism from the Satanic

Panic to The SatanicTemple and show how

Satanists arefi ghting backagainst the witch-

hunters.Penny opted for a broader overview,

and I’m impressed with how concisely she

addressed so many topics and issues in an

entertaining, easy to follow, hour-and-a-half.

PL: Many critics suggest TST began as‘a

joke’that has now got out of hand...

LG: When people hear that we originally

envisioned an activistfi lm, they assume that

the philosophical beliefs were an afterthought

meant to substantiate that project. Satanism

was not chosen arbitrarily as the religious

identity to pursue the objective of presenting

an alternative viewpoint to advance pluralism,

however. I myself have self-identified asa

Satanist for my entire adult life. Add to that

our willingness to engage in pranksterism

and exploit the absurdity of our opposition,

and many people have a bizarre knee-jerk

reaction that insists humour and sincerity

cannot coexist; activismexcludes religious

authenticity, and nontheistic religion is merely

an oxymoron meant to confuse and outrage

fundamentalists.We originally envisioned

that ourfi lm would inspire a decentralised

uprising of Satanists unified under the banner

of The SatanicTemple to pursue equal access

claims and build local Satanic communities.

As soon as we got started, however, the

press attentionwas more than anticipated,

the demands for formal affiliationfl ooded in,

and the need for a spokesperson to clarify it

all was immediate. Our messagewas getting

out to the world already, and we were able to

start a real organisation around our deeply-

held beliefs, which could sustain a worldwide

community. Ironically, I think that it is the

unusual honesty in our presentation, devoid of

self-glorifying myth-making, that leads some to

conclude that we are a joke.

their satanic

majesties request...

“I myself have

identified asa

Satanist formy

entire adult life”