{"id":4018,"date":"2022-08-14T20:27:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T03:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/queersatanic.com\/?p=4018"},"modified":"2022-08-14T20:27:00","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T03:27:00","slug":"when-it-comes-to-the-satanic-temple-theres-always-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qs.gehenna.ynh.fr\/?p=4018","title":{"rendered":"When it comes to The Satanic Temple, there’s always more"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Satanic Temple uses people\u2014uses them up and discards them (or worse).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you think you’re different, look at what happened to those who came before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TST will use any weakness you give them and hurt you with it later: your housing, mental health, even the death of your pet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Photo<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some of you may even remember this Vice <\/em>article<\/a> from a few years back:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"How<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So in 2016, The Satanic Temple found Astaroth useful for public propaganda, as in that Vice<\/em> 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)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"image<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Satanic Trump-supporter Brian Werner’s sign speaks for itself, but Werner also believed abortion was “killing a child”<\/a>. Werner apparently found the death of Trayvon Martin very funny<\/a>, or at least wanted to be edgy selling clothing about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Zach Black may be less familiar to most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From The Village Voice<\/a><\/em> in 2014:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Zach Black is a 38-year-old sushi chef in Northern California and a longtime Satanist. He started the Satanic International Network, the largest \u2014 though not the only \u2014 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 \u201cproactive.\u201d

Black is one of a group of disaffected ex-Church of Satan members who believe Gilmore was never supposed to become the church\u2019s 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. \u201cBut he turned it down. He didn\u2019t want to do it. I\u2019m not sure why.\u201d<\/strong>
…
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 \u201cracialist\u201d band.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In other words, Zach Black thought it was a shame this guy<\/a> didn’t take over Church of Satan, and therefore Black joined The Satanic Temple to get it going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Black<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Proactive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, back to that Vice <\/em>article, the message was “We’re not like those other<\/em> Satanists”, the Church of Satan, sure, but also Brian Werner, Shane Bugbee, and Zach Black who got TST off the ground in 2013-2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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<\/a> 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.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>“.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this capacity, Ash comes up in the Belle Plaine lawsuit depositions<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\"Q.<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Satanic Temple’s owners “helped” Ash Astaroth by letting him move into Salem Art Gallery \/ TST’s physical headquarters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sounds kind, but remember, they weren’t just letting him stay as a friend: they worked<\/em> him. They really worked him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read those depositions and email evidence<\/a> 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<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ash’s housing was directly controlled by his employer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a> in Atlanta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s the context of the article that Ash Astaroth, former director of The Satanic Temple’s headquarters in Salem, wrote after being “excommunicated” from The Satanic Temple in 2018, coinciding with the “Great Schism” where many chapters left the national Temple org<\/a> over TST’s owners’ priorities and histories coming to light. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as a general warning, watch out for self-harm and suicide references, mental illness, abuse, and pet death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Satanic Temple is a business cult of alt-lite asshole trolls. Unfollow.<\/a><\/blockquote>