The Canon · No. 117
The Satanic Temple
TST
2013 CE – present · Esoteric / Occult · Living · United States, with chapters in Canada, UK, Europe, Australia
VIII. POSTWAR & CONTEMPORARY — 1945 – PRESENT
How many
Claims over 700,000 registered supporters; active dues-paying membership is far smaller, in the low thousands.
Who began it
Lucien Greaves (Douglas Mesner) and Malcolm Jarry, in 2013.
What it is for
To campaign for the separation of church and state, for reproductive rights, and against religious privilege — using the legal protections afforded to religion as the instrument.
What it worships
None. TST is explicitly non-theistic. Satan is used as a literary figure — the Miltonic and Romantic rebel against tyranny — and TST states plainly that it does not believe in any supernatural being.
What it holds
Seven Tenets, which are the whole of its doctrine: act with compassion and empathy; struggle for justice; one's body is inviolable and subject to one's own will alone; the freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend; beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world, not the reverse; people are fallible and should make amends for harm; and every tenet is a guiding principle rather than a rule, with the spirit of compassion and justice taking precedence over the written word.
What it does
Public ritual as political theatre. Legal action. Community campaigns — After School Satan Clubs, offered in districts that host evangelical Good News Clubs; menstrual product drives; adopt-a-highway. The Satanic Abortion Ritual, framed as a protected religious rite in order to challenge state abortion restrictions under religious liberty statutes.
After death
None. The organisation is materialist and offers no doctrine of survival.
Its texts
No scripture. The Seven Tenets.
Its branches
Independent of the Church of Satan, which has publicly disparaged it. Chapters are semi-autonomous.
Of note
TST poses a genuinely hard question for religious liberty law. If a court must decide whether TST is a real religion, it has to define religion — which the American courts have generally refused to do, on the ground that the state has no competence to judge sincerity of belief. TST exists in large part to keep that question open.
Its timeline
- 2013 CE Founded; the first public action supports Florida legislation permitting school prayer, on the grounds that it would also permit Satanic prayer.
- <strong>2014–2018 CE</strong> The Baphomet statue. TST commissions a bronze of the goat-headed Baphomet and offers it for installation beside Ten Commandments monuments on public land in Oklahoma and Arkansas. The Oklahoma monument is removed by court order in 2015; the point is made in both cases.
- 2016 CE After School Satan Clubs launched; litigation over district refusals follows, and TST wins in Pennsylvania in 2023.
- 2019 CE The IRS grants TST church status, which the organisation had initially declined to seek and then pursued specifically to demonstrate that religious privilege is available to anyone.
- 2020–present Legal challenges to abortion restrictions in Missouri, Texas and Idaho framed as religious liberty claims; results have been mixed and mostly unsuccessful in court, though the arguments have drawn substantial attention.
- 2019 CE The documentary Hail Satan? brings the organisation to a wide audience.
- 2020s CE Internal criticism and departures over leadership decisions and legal strategy; ongoing public confusion with the Church of Satan, which the two organisations have publicly disputed.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.