Dear Satan

So, dear reader, I know what question you are all aching to ask but are too afraid to. Well, be afraid…be very afraid. Where do you keep the baby fat? Sorry to disappoint anyone out there who expected me to just whip it out. And to those who are letting out a trembling exhale of relief, I’m with you. Whew.

That expectation is probably a manifestation of the Satanic Panic, a moral panic consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse starting in the United States in the 1980s and spreading throughout many parts of the world by the late 1990s.

Or you grew up in a predominantly Christian family.  

I know the blurb said I will be dispensing spiritual insight like dispensaries sell eighths, but The Satanic Temple shuns the spiritual side of reality. TST works towards removing the supernatural from religion. Satan is not an entity but a symbol of the original provocateur. A rebel who stands up to the tyrannical powers that rule us and has the cahones to say, “Why not?” I admitted to another member that I would shit my pants if I were to encounter a creature that stood about 7-foot something. From the shoulders up, a huge Black Phillip. Neck down, a chiselled body like Schwarzenegger, Predator Era. Waist down, huge goat-like legs covered in dark fur and terminating in thick black hooves. She told me, “That would be hot.”

I’m gonna have to agree to disagree on that one, missus. 

I was a drinker’s drinker, which over time developed into a serious case of The Bukowskis. I checked myself into a 90-day rehab. One thing that bothered me tremendously was leaving everything up to my “higher power.” I thought, “Fuck this higher power.” I am the one that has created this change in me, not some ambiguous HP. Just for shits and giggles, I googled Satanic AA meetings. It was mainly a joke search, but there was one in SoCal.

That internet search also dug up a movie trailer from under a large rock, whence the rock was removed from its earthen grip, a foetid belch oozed out of the inferno. When the stench cleared, there was a documentary called “Hail Satan?” I was touched by the earnest work these people were doing to push back at the growing threat of theocracy. After Arkansas Senator Rapert erected a Ten Commandment statue on public ground, TST asked to erect a statue of Baphomet on public grounds. These folk were watching out for our rights against a growing religious right. I didn’t consider joining, but I started to follow TST on Instagram.

Then came the overturning of Roe v. Wade. That afternoon, TST posted that they have an abortion ritual to celebrate bodily autonomy. They do not set themselves up to become pregnant to abort a fetus. They are telling the general public, “If you need an abortion, contact us. We will say you are a member, thus ensuring a safe abortion for whoever.” It was this advocacy and other initiatives that had me cheering them on. I let that digest and read more about the group before I decided to become a member of TST because they are a group that is unafraid to take action if need be. I am down with this. Change only happens with action. 

This is the enemy of your freedom:

Just days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, Colorado’s Western Slope Rep. Lauren Boebert said churches should direct the government, not the other way around.

“The church is supposed to direct the government, the government is not supposed to direct the church,” Boebert told the crowd, which applauded. “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk.” 

The Denver Post, 2022

What would she make of this zine? Or its contributors?

Hail Satan. Hail FR Anderson II.