The Satanic Temple

I'd been following TST since it first popped up in the news, and eventually just decided to join. I love the community and am glad to see some of that porting over here. Hail yourself :)

I live in Denver and in 2020 there was a proposed bill to limit abortion access. I had a vague idea of what TST did so my desperate googling landed me on their membership page. Now I keep my religious abortion ritual card in my pocket, just in case.

Honestly, and I don't mean this to sound rude at all, but I went through a kind of edgy phase in highschool that lead to TST. Which, as it turns out, is very different than the theatrics it puts on in name and symbol lol.

To be clear, I don't consider it to be an "edgy" group, I understand the point of referencing Satan, and all that, just that my discovery of it was the result of other dabblings that one might consider edgy.

My story starts with becoming an atheist about 15 years ago, hearing about TST fighting to put a Baphomet statue on the state capitol grounds in Oklahoma, and then not thinking about them much for the next 9 years except when they'd pop up in the news and I'd laugh my ass off at whatever antics they were engaged in. I legitimately didn't realize it wasn't an elaborate troll for a long, long time.

That all changed last year when the draft Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v Wade was leaked. I saw that as a call to action. I went to protests and looked for any organizations I could find that are fighting for reproductive rights. Naturally, atheists on reddit at the time reminded me about the Temple, so I gave it a hard look for the first time ever and realized it was a serious religion. And, not just that, one whose core tenets I agreed with wholeheartedly. I was officially a Satanist by that month's end and haven't looked back!

Oddly enough, the Hail Satan! documentary on Hulu.

Was into the original COS back in the day but was never a formal member. Wasn't until my mid 20s that I found TST and by then I had mellowed out a lot, and TST appealed a lot to my humanist side, along with my partner. It was mostly causality than anything else, but it's been great so far.

Tst as an org around the time they started trying to erect Baphomet statues, satanism as a young fella working out existential questions and being interested in philosophy, literature and the occult. I dont't practise or follow any tenents aside from those that arise from my own morality, but I do appreciate the counter-movement against christo-fascism.

Religulous.

I grew up in a conservative christian household but when I was 18 I met a trans woman (neither she nor I knew it at the time) that asked me, when I was doing as conservatives do, "But what if you're wrong?" That was the first time in my life someone even suggested I question my beliefs and it was asked so kindly and earnestly it sent me down a rabbit hole of Christopher Hitchen's, Richard Dawkins, and too many others to count. Eventually I caught Religulous on Netflix and that was the first time I heard about TST.

TST and other freethinkers saved my life, I believe, because when I was full of hate I didn't hate anything as much as I hated myself. The Satanic Temple among other groups and individuals helped me to be accepting of others which helped me to stop hating myself.

This is a bit of a tangent at this point, so I'll just add hail Satan.

Geocities.

I had heard about them originally during the attention they had gotten for some political activism a few years ago. Like any other person, I thought they genuinely worshipped or believed in a Satan, which wasn’t compatible with me as an atheist. I don’t think I took the time to learn more about them from there.

Then more recently, I came across them again. I began to read into what and who they are, and I aligned with their values. I spent a long time just reading and reading, watching ‘Hail Satan?’ and member testimonials. It’s basically atheism 2.0 for me. A way to do, be, and represent more. I am from Iowa, so the desecration of the display also caught my attention further.

🤘🏽 Hail Satan, Hail Thyself 🤘🏽

Their various lawsuits. They were something to behold.

I'd been hearing about various things in the news that TST was doing for years, like the Baphomet statue, After School Satan Club, etc. I was pretty amused and thought they were doing awesome stuff. The Abortion ritual and TST Health made me take it a bit more seriously. I read the seven tenants at that point and found that the group's morals and my own aligned, so I decided to join. Very happy with my decision so far and extra-pleased about the new rituals announced this month in support of LGBT folks.

Anyway, hail yourself!