Hail Satan? (2019) reversed my erroneous misconceptions about The Satanic Temple.
The film reveals The Satanic Temple isn’t the joke news and commentary portrays. Director Penny Lane (Nuts, Our Nixon) exhibits the politicized religious organization through a lens of genuine inquiry that the mainstream media failed to encapsulate. In the beginning, the documentary paints the newly government-officiated religion as a mere gag, that started with an actor. Then, the group transforms quickly into a growing humanitarian movement. Membership went from 50 people in 2013 to around 50,000 in 2019, according to the film. The IRS granted tax-exempt status to The Satanic Temple on April 25, 2019, so dispelling its legitimacy in the future will be tough for naysayers.
"This acknowledgment will help make sure The Satanic Temple has the same access to public spaces as other religious organizations, affirm our standing in court when battling religious discrimination and allow us to apply for faith-based government grants," states The Satanic Temple’s website.
They deserve a venue, freedom and funding, because The Satanic Temple holds what was missing from all the initiatic occult groups I joined between the ages of 16 and 26: tangible community action. Collective activism, on a local and national level, is conveyed in the film, when members of The Satanic Temple clean up beaches, protest policymakers and crash anti-abortion protests in grotesque baby-head costumes. Even though I read articles about The Satanic Temple online, I didn’t know the scope of advocacy involved, until I watched Hail Satan? Such direct action adds a concise, collective purpose that was missing from The Temple Of Psychick Youth and the Ordo Templi Orientis—and other groups I avoided, such as the Church Of Satan.
I didn’t have a good first impression before watching the documentary. I scoffed at The Satanic Temple’s approach to Satanism that somehow reminded me of cornball Marilyn Manson fans in the ’90s—an era that played out shock for shock sake. I realized how gravely mistaken I was, after watching the movie.
The Satanic Temple seems to be on an ironically righteous path, but it’s still a relatively new organization. The first campaign was a rally for Rick Scott at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee, after Bill SB-96, which permits student prayer in schools, was enacted on January 25, 2013. Footage of the rally, and commentary on it, is in the documentary. The seven tenets are also unpacked in the film’s interviews. They coalesce in an inarguable finale: "Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word."
My introduction to The Satanic Temple was from the reports on a life-size statue of Eliphas Levi’s Baphomet—with Iggy Pop’s abs, as unveiled in Hail Satan?—cruising the State Capitol in Little Rock, Arkansas, in protest of a 10 Commandments Monument on State Capitol grounds. As a lifelong occultist, I was taken aback, because I never thought the word "Baphomet" would be added to the mainstream lexicon. I want to personally thank The Satanic Temple for that milestone. The Satanic Temple also humanizes Satanists. Since I formerly identified as a Satanist, I think their work is a necessary way to heal the ongoing Satanic panic that damages lives and brainwashes feeble minds.
Satanists of this credo appear more wholesome than their right-wing, Christian-opposers. The Temple is nonviolent and advocates for human rights. Its philosophy promulgates compassion, science, depoliticizing religion and exposing hypocrisy. In Hail Satan?, goodwill, benevolence, open-mindedness and free expression were also cited as some main elements of The Satanic Temple’s values. That’s a far cry from the propagated messaging of diabolical mayhem, probably meant to suppress personal freedom, so the patriarchal moral-majority can continue to usurp control.
My favorite quote in the film, from Lucien Greaves (who co-founded The Satanic Temple), says it best: "It’s a great day to be a Satanist."
Indeed, it is—so much that I miss being one.
The following Q-and-A with Lucien Greaves was truncated for brevity. I found him to be just as eloquent, sophisticated and humorous as he was in the film. Read on, to make your own assessment. After I saw the movie, I realized I was fed a lot of misinformation via mainstream media. There’s a lot of that going around. We always knew we were in it for the long haul. It would take a long time before things would be vindicated. We have to get through the layers and layers of Satanic panic misinformation, before we get to the point where concerned organizations or individuals stop misrepresenting what it is we’re actually doing.
Jaime: The Satanic Temple has a very clear message—something that was missing from any organization I was involved in over a decade ago. You all have an actual agenda.
Lucien: The film didn’t get into it very deeply. It just had a couple of us talking about the damage that Satanic panic had done. If you’re more interested in the ways that we fight back against the current and ongoing Satanic panic, check out our site, GreyFaction.org. It’s a separate subsection of The Satanic Temple that deals with these issues, specifically. The focus there is against the licensed mental health professionals who still use discredited tactics—which were used to draw forth memories of Satanic ritual abuse during the Satanic panic. A lot of them are still doing exactly as they did before—still treating multiple personality disorder, which is known as dissociative identity disorder, in this way in which they start with the assumption that there’s some kind of repressed, extreme trauma. A therapist who believes in Satanic ritual abuse and the Satanic cult conspiracy always tends to draw forth these memories of Satanic roots or inter-generational Satanism within somebody’s household, as being the root cause of whatever psychiatric malaise they’re suffering. It’s the same discredited cast of characters that you see sitting in Geraldo Rivera’s studio, talking about these things, still in practice, doing these things now. They just don’t bring it out publicly, and they don’t try to make a media spectacle of it. And, for the most part, they try to discourage their clients from seeking legal recourse against those whom they revealed through their new memories (and have committed abuse against them), because a conspiracy theory has grown to say that you’re not going to get a fair shake amongst the courts.
(We discussed contemporary Satanic panic and Greaves’s hope for a separate documentarian to run with the topic).
Will there be hard copies of Hail Satan? released anytime soon?
I don’t know when there will be hard copies, but I know when they do make hard copies for purchase, they have a lot of great bonus material they want to put in, which I’m looking forward to seeing.
Is there anything that got cut, that you hope gets included?
I kind of jumped right into that, with mentioning Grey Faction. That’s one of the reasons I really wanted to work with Penny. I really appreciated her skeptical approach. I first saw her documentary Nuts. I thought the way that the narrative was constructed—this historical documentary—was just genius.
Lucien says he doesn’t typically care for narratives in documentaries, because they’re usually chronological and uninteresting. When we were first talking about her making a documentary, I was trying to convince her to make something entirely focused on Grey Faction. It ended up being far more general, but I’m really happy with the documentary.
I think a lot of people don’t realize, like with The Satanic Temple, we’re not really seeking out press the way people think—we do get a lot of media, but we try to be careful that the media is focused, and that we’re not seeking media for its own sake, but to draw attention to issues and problems that we see—to give people a better understanding of where we are and what we’re doing.
In terms of some of the things I wish were there and got missed, I regret that some of Jason Rapert’s tirades were missed. When I was there—when the 10 Commandments Monument was being reinstalled—he was on the phone, trying to get the police from Mississippi to come over to Arkansas and arrest me in Little Rock for The Pink Mass.
In the final scene, where we’re doing the rally, I was worried that me putting on the bullet-proof vest would seem overly dramatic, because people wouldn’t know how many threats we had gotten. I’m kind of disappointed that the cameras missed the number of people milling about with guns. It was open carry and, technically, on the State Capitol grounds, you’re not supposed to have a weapon—this is right across the street, right behind me, these people were milling about with guns. Waving and signaling to us that they were there. It seemed very plausible that I was going to get shot. I wish that was conveyed in the film, because it takes away any notion that there was a bit of theatrical grandstanding in that.
Have the death threats toned down?
I wouldn’t say they’ve toned down. I would say that I don’t think we’re getting more because of the film. By far, it feels like the least controversial thing we’ve done. If anything, I feel like journalists are now approaching me with a lot more respect, after having seen the film.
We continued discussing the variety of Satanic groups and their likenesses, differences and where The Satanic Temple fits in historically, culturally and philosophically, but that will have to be a separate piece.
In the meantime, look for Hail Satan? in your local theaters and visit HailSatanFilm.com/Tickets for more information. Not playing in your town? Rumor has it, this film from Magnolia Pictures will be available for streaming this summer.
