{"id":2544,"date":"2023-11-08T10:54:43","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T18:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/queersatanic.com\/?p=2544"},"modified":"2023-11-08T10:54:43","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T18:54:43","slug":"footnotes-to-the-atlantics-a-satanic-rebellion-social-justice-collides-with-the-satanic-temple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qs.gehenna.ynh.fr\/?p=2544","title":{"rendered":"Footnotes to The Atlantic’s: “A Satanic Rebellion – Social justice collides with the Satanic Temple”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In early October, The Atlantic<\/em>‘s staff writer Helen Lewis finally published a story about the fallout from Doug Misicko a.k.a. “Lucien Greaves” taking a chummy photo with his friend the “anti-woke” sex pest and disgraced atheist “firebrand” David Silverman, most notable now for his anti-trans views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Unfortunately, Lewis is basically your bog-standard TERF Island journalist<\/a>, so a lot of the thrust of the article and the only places to really pick up this story were reactionaries looking to mock “the left is eating itself” Satanists, such as Fox News<\/a> and The Daily Wire<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s unfortunate, because there was some good material included in there. The inclusion of the revelation that The Satanic Temple has paid contractors to actively monitor the social media feeds of its critics seems like something that might have made a bigger splash if someone else had taken notice of it. And we were<\/em> able to be quoted and talked about our lawsuit a little bit in a Wikipedia-citeable news outlet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our section is reproduced below for anyone who missed it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Non-paywall link<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“This is supposed to be a religion, but really, it\u2019s a corporation run by two dudes,\u201d<\/strong> David Johnson told me one night over Zoom. Johnson is a heretic from heresy. He used to belong to the Satanic Temple, and is now one of four American ex-members being sued<\/a> for taking over two of its Facebook pages and using them to disseminate complaints about the organization.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His concerns fall into a broad pattern echoed by other ex-members. When I interviewed them and dug into their complaints, many of the issues were managerial as much as ideological, centered on the assertion that the Temple\u2019s leadership was undemocratic and overbearing. The dissidents disliked the nondisclosure agreements given to chapter heads, which the Temple says are necessary to prevent leaks \u201cby former affiliates with poor intentions.\u201d The Temple <\/strong>actively monitors<\/strong><\/a> the social-media feeds of critics and interested parties\u2014my name turned up in an internal document for tweeting a comment request at a former member\u2014and excommunicates those who, like the Sober Faction, challenge its authority<\/strong>. Its expertise in lawsuits is concerning to apostates who are contemplating taking their grievances public: TST\u2019s suit against the four ex-members was dismissed, but the organization still has the opportunity to appeal. (TST also sued Newsweek<\/em> for libel after it published a story reporting<\/a> the ex-members\u2019 claims; the suit is ongoing<\/a>.)  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another frequent complaint is about the centralization of power. The Temple\u2019s org chart shows that decisions are made in consultation with the National Council. But in practice, former members told me, the final say goes to the \u201cexecutive ministry,\u201d made up of Greaves [Doug Misicko] and Jarry [Cevin Soling]. Local groups are expected to get clearance from Salem for their events and campaigns, and to pass on a percentage of their revenue.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greaves said that his critics \u201coften seem to be under the delusion that the Satanic Temple makes a lot of money, and that if they just broke free of Satanic Temple management and had their own group, that money would be coming to them.\u201d (The Temple\u2019s accounts<\/a> are not publicly available for review.) Joseph Laycock, who literally wrote the book on the Temple, told me that he couldn\u2019t find a \u201csmoking gun\u201d to support the ex-members\u2019 concerns about fundraising.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson and his friend Nathan Sullivan, who now organize under the name Queer Satanic, no longer defer to the air of mystery cultivated by the Temple. During our conversation, neither man used Greaves\u2019s pseudonym, instead referring to him as Doug [Misicko]. They also endorse some critics\u2019 <\/strong>description<\/strong><\/a> of the Temple as \u201cScientology for mall goths.\u201d<\/strong> As for Greaves\u2019s co-founder Malcolm Jarry, they pointed to a documentary that he made about a cargo cult in Vanuatu, in which he offers himself as the island\u2019s long-prophesied messiah. (Jarry declined to be interviewed for this article.)  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson and Sullivan despair over the counterintuitive narrative that drives so many articles about the Temple: <\/strong>What if Satanists were the good guys, actually?<\/strong><\/em> \u201cThat\u2019s such a fun premise for so many journalists and so many writers and academics,\u201d Johnson said. The real question, he continued, is \u201cWhat if TST sucks for boring reasons?\u201d<\/strong>
…  
If you came to Satanism because of a suffocating sense of conformity in your previous life, then you might well be on high alert for signs of incipient totalitarianism in your current one. This is what Johnson suggested was the real problem about the photo of Greaves with David Silverman. \u201cThere is no mechanism to remove him,\u201d he said. \u201cThere was no mechanism to hold him accountable. I think that\u2019s what pushed people away more so than the incident itself\u2014yet another far-right figure, yet another transphobe, etc. That wasn\u2019t the inciting incident so much as Lucien Greaves going out on Twitter and just saying, <\/strong>How dare you ask me to apologize<\/strong><\/em>.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For more background and context on David Silverman, see also our article about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What’s going on with David Silverman and The Satanic Temple?<\/a><\/blockquote>