The Satanic Temple isn’t Satanism. It’s a political action brand wearing a goat mask—nimble at poking theocrats, slick at fundraising, and terminally confused about what Satanism is for. Satanism—real Satanism—is an atheistic, Epicurean philosophy of vital existence and rational self-interest. It starts at the spine, not the courthouse. You are the altar; your life is the ritual. If the engine under the hood isn’t personal autonomy, lived agency, and unapologetic self-creation, it isn’t Satanism. It’s cosplay with a press list.
TST pitches Seven Tenets—pleasant, lawsuit-safe platitudes about compassion, justice, and bodily autonomy. Fine sentiments. Also the kind of thing you could stencil in a hospital waiting room and no one would flinch. That’s the problem: they read like HR posters, not infernal ethos. Even their own Tenets page sits beside a merch rack like a church foyer turned Shopify. That’s branding, not becoming.
Where TST shines is spectacle. They’ve scored clean hits exposing government hypocrisy: in Pennsylvania, Saucon Valley tried to slam the door on an After School Satan Club after flinging it wide for the Jesus club—and a federal court slapped their hand. The district ended up writing a $200,000 check. That’s a valuable civics lesson, and I’m glad it stung. But scoreboard victories aren’t the same as a philosophy. Court orders can force equal access; they can’t forge a self.
Here’s the line they trample: Satanism isn’t a youth program. We don’t recruit children. We don’t plant flags in elementary schools, wrap metaphors in cartoons, and call it “equal access.” A Satanist refuses catechism by any name—especially when the audience is still forming a self. If a mind isn’t ready to choose, you don’t brand it; you leave it alone. Teach by example, not by club. Let adults come to Satanism on their own time with their own teeth. Anything else is just the mirror image of the Good News Club—reactive theater that mistakes publicity for principles.
The courtroom gambits don’t always land, either. Their Arizona legislative-prayer push flamed out; the Ninth Circuit backed Scottsdale’s denial. Clever stunt, wrong venue to discover personal power. Their Missouri abortion litigation—built on a ritual theory framed as religious exercise—hit the wall at the Eighth Circuit. The rhetoric sizzled; the law said no. That’s not a moral judgment on abortion (bodily autonomy is non-negotiable); it’s a reminder that legal theater isn’t a substitute for a creed.
Then there’s the Baphomet roadshow—an undeniably effective mirror for Christian privilege. If Moses gets granite, the Goat gets bronze; point made. But notice the dependency: the symbol only breathes when the other side moves first. That’s not Satanic vitality; that’s reactive art installation. It’s civics class in horns. Useful, yes. Transformative, no.
Receipts, since someone will ask: TST’s own first website in January 2013 laid out an explicitly theistic cosmology—“God… created Satan to preside over the universe as His proxy… only Satan can hear our prayers and only Satan can respond.” Today their FAQ declares the opposite: “No, nor do we believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural.” You can call that evolution; I call it costume change. A philosophy that flips like a campaign slogan is not a philosophy. [A][B]
The IRS recognizing them as a church in 2019? That buys them tax treatment, not metaphysics. The taxman can grant status; he cannot grant substance. And the press will keep mistaking their activism for Satanism because activism photographs well and interior work doesn’t. Satanism isn’t a spectacle sport. It is the daily, unspectacular discipline of saying yes to life, saying no to parasites, and refusing to kneel—without a judge’s permission and without a crowd’s applause.
If you want activism, by all means: sue, protest, and make theocrats cry into their culture-war merch. I’ll clap when you land a clean punch. But if you want Satanism, put down the placard and pick up a mirror. The work is personal sovereignty, not public stunts; lived ethics, not legal skirmishes; appetite married to responsibility, not hashtags married to headlines. Embrace who you are, live the richest version of that self, and bend your corner of the world to your will. That isn’t a lawsuit—that’s a life. And that, not TST’s theater, is Satanism.
Sources / Further Reading
- Internet Archive (Jan 20, 2013). “Religious Beliefs of The Satanic Temple.” Link
- The Satanic Temple. “Frequently Asked Questions.” Link
- The Satanic Temple. “There Are Seven Fundamental Tenets.” Link
- ACLU of Pennsylvania. “Federal Court Orders Saucon Valley School District to Allow After School Satan Club to Meet” (May 1, 2023) and “Pennsylvania School District Agrees to Pay $200,000 to Settle After School Satan Club Lawsuit” (Nov 16, 2023).
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, The Satanic Temple, Inc. v. City of Scottsdale (May 19, 2021) (mem.).
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Doe v. Parson (June 9, 2020).
- Religion News Service. “The Satanic Temple is a real religion, says IRS” (Apr 25, 2019).
[A] and [B] referenced inline above.
A: Religious Beliefs of the Satanic Temple as it appeared on their early website.
B: Their current statement of Beliefs is buried in their FAQ.
Spoiler, they've swung from Satan exists to Satan is a symbol.
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