Ep.17: An Evening with Lucien Greaves

# Satanists Nextdoor
# Ep.17: An Evening with Lucien Greaves

[Lilin Lavin]
Welcome, dear listeners, to Satanist Next Door. We're your hosts, Lilin Lavin and Tommy Lavin. Whether you're an open-minded curious onlooker or a fellow Satanist seeking camaraderie, our goal is to share our personal experiences and delve into the intricate tapestry of Satanism in our daily lives, occasionally inviting other guests to share their unique perspectives, leaving no pentagram unturned.

We'll explore how our beliefs shape our views on society, dive into struggles and triumphs we've encountered, and reveal the humanity that unites us all. So grab your favorite chalice and join us on this captivating journey. Satanist Next Door is ready to peel back the curtain and offer you a glimpse into our world, one captivating episode at a time.

[Tommy Lavin]
Hello and welcome to another episode of Satanist Next Door. I know over the last few months you've kind of gotten to know us, so we thought we would change things up a little bit and start bringing some guests on board. And who better to bring on as the first guest than Lucian Graves.

Hey, Lucian.

[Lucien Greaves]
Hello. How do you do?

[Tommy Lavin]
Doing well. You know us, go big or go home, right? So yeah, I thought let's start out maybe with something a little bit lighter.

As I was thinking, I was listening to different interviews and things like that, and everybody always wants to go for the controversy and stuff like that first. But I thought I would start out with when you started TST, back when you all first started it, did you ever foresee it becoming as large as it is now, and kind of the relevance that the organization has?

[Lucien Greaves]
No, I kind of thought the idea would really take hold, but that people would independently be doing things that we kind of set the framework for. But what we found instead was that people really wanted to identify with us, line up behind us. They wanted more than just a template of action.

They wanted a timeline. They wanted regular communication, that type of thing. So it became apparent pretty quickly that this was going to be a lot bigger than that, that we really needed to put a lot more together.

And I think we did that rather quickly. And in some ways, that shows. We've dealt with a lot of growing pains through the years, and we've had to adjust very quickly as we've scaled upward to meet different demands.

And it's been a bumpy ride along the way, but I think overall, we've done a fairly good job for the nothing we started out with.

[Lilin Lavin]
I would definitely agree with that, especially having grown a lot of the way with you guys. It's definitely been something to watch, and I'm proud of what you guys have accomplished. So when it comes to your life and the way it's affected you, is this something that you had imagined for yourself?

And how would you have changed it?

[Lucien Greaves]
Well, at the point where I became the primary image of the pink mass, and that I knew that I was going to be in those photographs, and that I knew people would start recognizing my face and putting it to who I am, I kind of figured then that that was the end for me. Before that, I was trying to avoid that because I think, as some people know, I already, well before TST, had established myself as something of an expert in the satanic panic. And knowing about the satanic panic, I knew how people's lives are ruined on mere accusations of satanism.

People who probably had no attachment to satanism at all, and some of them certainly did not. So it seemed like something of a suicidal act to come forward as the face of a satanic organization. So at the point when I did that, I knew I was going to have to work to vindicate that thereafter, and that was going to be very difficult to do anything else after that point.

And I was very pessimistic, and I'm often very fatalistic about things, but you know, with that in mind, I think things turned out a lot better than I could have anticipated.

[Lilin Lavin]
I would definitely agree with that. I know that controversy obviously is something that follows you, for better or worse, and I think you've dealt with it the best that, you know, someone in your position possibly could, so.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, yeah. And I would say, you know, looking back because, you know, kind of been following since the beginning, and like you mentioned the satanic panic, I became a satanist late teenage years towards the end of the 90s. So I was kind of on the tail end of that, but I still remember a lot of it.

You know, I remember the opera shows, the, you know, all of that sort of stuff and having, you know, Michael Aquino on those to, you know, kind of try and at least be somewhat of a sane voice saying, we don't do all these things that you all say that we do. So watching, you know, watching the satanic temple grow, it was, you know, like you said, definitely there's some growing pains in there, but I think it's, that's every organization has growing pains, you know, it's can they stay together through the growing pains and make something better out of that? And that's where I think y'all have done a tremendous job of handling that.

[Lucien Greaves]
Thank you.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Not to say that it hasn't been difficult at moments.

[Lucien Greaves]
Well, sure. Some things are just lose, lose situations, but the one's ability to weather those is really essential to keeping the integrity of an organization together. And I think a lot of progressive organizations have failed there, trying to accommodate everybody all at once in situations that are manufactured to be lose, lose situations.

And I think we've done a good job of holding to our principles, regardless of whatever the current social media fad is. And I'm proud of us for that.

[Lilin Lavin]
I would agree. It's hard though. I mean, especially when there's so many public outcries about different things.

I know you get pigeonholed a lot. And when controversy does arise, it seems like no matter what you say, it comes across the wrong way to many people. How do you combat that in your daily life?

How do you stay sane when it seems like no matter what you do, it's the wrong thing?

[Lucien Greaves]
You know, who would I be to say that I've managed to remain sane? You know, who can say that of themselves? I don't know.

To a certain degree, you know, this has affected me in horrific ways, in ways I just feel I don't relate to people the same way I once did. When COVID set in, I really kind of went recluse. And, you know, now I feel a real tendency to do that, even though it has nothing to do with fear of infectious disease or anything of the type.

It's just, I more and more find it difficult to go out and mingle amongst people. But I think I've remained rational in any case. I've just had to kind of recalibrate my thinking the best I can.

And it's not an easy thing, but it is remarkable to me to see how many people kind of feel like they could do what I'm doing and that seem to have the notion that they could do it better. And, you know, before I didn't think much of what I was doing and its use of my particular talents. But as time has gone on, I've become more and more convinced that there aren't actually many people who could do what I do.

And if they were in the position to have to do so, their expectations would be radically overturned by the reality of what it is. And I don't think a lot of the people who would try to usurp me would last more than a week.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I agree. I often, you know, kind of combat when I, when I see people just talking crap or, you know, having their temper tantrums or whatever, it's kind of like, well, how about this? Why don't you go and try and do this yourself and see one, can you even build up a community?

And if you do, how long will that actually last? You know, how many attacks will you be able to weather if you're falling apart over this?

[Lucien Greaves]
You know, I mean, so it's kind of the way that in some situations, it's just like, like I said, it's lose, lose, damned if you do damned, if you don't, either way you play it, you're going to have bad actors who are promoting the idea that you did exactly the wrong thing, where that's the church of Satan or other defectors, whatever it is, they would have done the opposite thing. And that's not going to change no matter what you do. And I think some people have the impression that if they just hold on to the, the most vocal of, of tribalistic whims being expressed on social media, they'll be able to make everybody happy.

And it's just, it's just not the reality of the situation.

[Tommy Lavin]
No, no, it's not. You bring up COS as a, you know, obviously I became a Satanist, like I said, late nineties. So I was a COS member for a very long time.

And what really appealed to me as, as TST started to come about and grow, and I watched for a little while, I kind of had a foot in, you know, a foot in each door for a while, because it was the part for me that was missing was the actual action. I, you know, I kind of always felt even before TST was there, when it was just COS, I was like, you guys aren't doing anything. You know, it's, it just kind of like, felt like you're just sitting in the corner with your thumb up your ass and you're not, you're not doing anything.

And so that is probably why, like you said, you know, you had this, this, you thought it would be something, but then all these people kind of rushed in. And I think some of those might've been people like, like me that were disenfranchised with satanism as it was, they, they liked satanism. They, they, you know, felt already like they were a satanist, but it was like, okay, but what do I do with this?

I'm not doing anything. And I don't feel like the organization I'm with is doing anything. And I mean, so maybe that's, that's part of the reason why you had that sort of rash at the beginning.

Yeah. I don't know.

[Lucien Greaves]
But that, that also like the, the, us getting attacked for what we do is just a by-product of us actually doing things and the COS benefits from doing nothing. And they decry us for being overly political when they claim to be political. But if you actually read the positions as presented between TST and the church of Satan, the church of Satan is far more explicitly political in what it States its goals to be.

They don't just look internally to people on their spiritual journey through the left-hand path. They talk about stratifying society. They talk about creating a social Darwinistic world in which power kind of is this is this self-justifying thing.

They, they fetishize revenge endlessly. They glorify autocracy. They talk, you know, Peter Gilmore has written an essay, Satanism, the feared religion, which they they put forward as something people being oriented into Satanism should read.

And it goes so far as to decry welfare and in foreign aid to, to other countries. And so, I mean, if that's not political, I don't know what is, but just the same, because they don't do anything, they're able to play both sides and pretend like, well, if anything goes wrong, I can say, we would have never done that. Or they can make grandstanding statements about what they're for or what they're against, but they're not really advocating for anything in any tangible way that an organization would.

So it's just, it's kind of this excuse. It kind of just ennobles inaction. This idea of what we're a political we're leading by example, by not, not being involved with politics as a religion, but really it's just, it's just a prescription to do nothing.

And unfortunately, I feel like the rest of culture has kind of gone the way of the COS where everybody's an activist online, but they don't have, they're not held to anything because so long as they're not actually doing anything, they can take one position one day and another position the next without anybody really noticing or interrogating them on it. So once you're actually in the fray and you're doing things in a world where people are really used to doing nothing at all anymore, which is unfortunately the case, I think, in a lot of activism now, then, you know, you're brought under all kinds of scrutiny that, that the do nothings just are not.

[Lilin Lavin]
Well, and I think one of the nice things having also been involved with COS and the thing community was missing for me, it exists, of course, and you could find other people to engage with, but they did at one point, try to do a similar approach to what you have now as your congregations, but they couldn't pull it off. How do you feel about the way that's kind of shaped up? I know they're all very individualistic running a congregation myself with other congregation heads.

I understand the challenges there, but what do you think about the way it's, it's progressed?

[Lucien Greaves]
I think I'm proud of, of some of the direction we've gone. We have some great congregations working and doing great things. We have others that aren't doing much, which is fine, perhaps if, if nobody really is feeling it, or if they're happy enough with the social interactions they're having within their congregations and that kind of thing.

And some of the congregations aren't shit and they are counterproductive and all they do is complain about whatever they can find to complain about. And, you know, some of the ministry I'm very proud of and some I'm very disappointed in. And I think we need to kind of elevate our standards for the ministry.

We, I think we need to add more to our coursework and I would like to see a ministry that is more able to engage with disputes, dysfunctions within the organization with a mind towards mediating those themselves, with a mind towards being the management, not coming to us for mitigation and resolution and in diplomacy. This was something we kind of wanted to hand over to the ministry to kind of take over the community and kind of guide people as neutral support to try to kind of bring them in line with the seven tenants to help people in their congregations, maybe if they're having a difficult time. And I think far too often we see a behavior in which, you know, it's what I say or that's it without an attempt at internal dialogue, without an attempt at understanding one another.

And this isn't just a problem of TST, this is a problem of polarized culture in general right now. But, you know, my hopeful aspiration is that we can get to a point where we kind of transcend that, where we hold ourselves to a different standard, where we don't feel beholden to just make statements of loyalty to one particular political point of view when we haven't just interrogated the problem, when we haven't made sure that we understand where both sides are coming from, or to be sure that we actually understand that somebody we're disagreeing with means what we think they meant they said. You know what I mean? Like that we're not just making assumptions about what people are trying to express.

And I feel like more and more it's a game to people now where they try to take the least charitable interpretation of what somebody says in order to be able to take offense at it. And I think we just create more enemies that way. We really push people into opposing camps when they might have been flexible to having the proper guidance in another direction.

I think polarization kind of begets itself and we create stupidity and lunacy when we engage in it. And I really feel like I would like to see a ministry that I feel is really competent in stepping up in that way, in having difficult discussions with people, being mediators in difficult situations, helping advance the goals of TST rather than joining another bandwagon mob and trying to overthrow it after a week of being a member or whatever happens. Because that kind of bullshit happens all the time.

And I think it's something we definitely need to take a hold of. And there again, of course, I'm concentrating on the negative, which I think is a minority, honestly, within TST. It's just whenever you get that kind of minority voice that's expressing grievance, it becomes outsized. And when demands are being made, there's often demands of other people in congregations or in leadership that they jump on the bandwagon as well.

And I don't think that that's necessarily the nature of TST by any means, or that that's the majority of the people in TST or the predisposition of the ministry. I just feel like we need to kind of in front some of this head on and set some real expectations for a more kind of managerial conduct within the ministry. All that said, I am proud of all the growth that has taken place, though.

And you can only deal with these things when you see them arise, you know, and you can't always anticipate them. So I don't think it's a horrific testimony upon TST that these are problems that we have.

[Tommy Lavin]
And I would agree with what you said. I was going to kind of crack a joke saying, well, I was trying to make this non-controversial, but screw it. How long have you known me?

You thought that was going to... No, but I agree with that.

[Lucien Greaves]
Well, I've mostly steered away from these discussions myself, even when they've had these kinds of public flare ups. But, you know, at the point where it feels like I have aimless opposition seeking amplification, seeking media. When I see, you know, magazines running feature articles about, you know, some of these aimless complaints, I feel like, OK, there comes a time where I have to start talking about this.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And, you know, the Atlantic article just came out, which, you know, again, I made quite a few comments on that online, just calling bullshit on, you know, their areas of bullshit, like, you know, bringing up sober faction. And, you know, it's just like, you guys, did you talk to the right people or did you just really go for let's see how much we can get wrong in this this article?

[Lucien Greaves]
Yeah, it was a strange article because it I mean, for me, it's strange because in a way, you know, it you know, you could argue it made me the hero. But it's it's that doesn't make me any happier because it seems to cast the, you know, TST itself as, you know, just some a group of infantile crybabies. And that you know, that that doesn't make me happy either.

I don't like to see that. This is you know, it's not me against TST. I consider TST my life's work. So I don't feel like it's a it's a great reflection on me to say that I'm right versus how wrong TST is that that doesn't that doesn't make me happy at all.

[Lilin Lavin]
And I don't think it should. But if it if it matters, a lot of the people that I know I've spoken to, they felt that it was just very fragmented. And it really seemed to only lob on to the most sensationalized aspects of what has gone wrong.

So I mean, they don't often highlight what goes right, right. So I think when it comes to what you're talking about, we've lost the ability to to discuss things and to be okay with the fact that we're not going to see things the same way. And that's an opportunity, rather than a reason to throw down everything and give up.

And I think that's the group that you're you're talking about that you're dealing with in that small section. But there are so many people that you've inspired to go out there and really make differences myself included. And just I love what what we've become in that way.

And I think that is something to be proud of. And hopefully people begin to talk more about that.

[Lucien Greaves]
Yeah, and I would hope that people would appreciate the fact that I am I do what I do, or I don't do what I don't do, because I recognize that I have a tendency to sometimes be wrong. And I want to be really sure that I'm right about anything before I mouth off about it, you know, that I that I can really stand by it. So if I'm not speaking directly about certain issues, I think that would be something to be grateful for.

Because I'm not going to necessarily just go along with the bandwagon. But, you know, I'm also with some things, maybe not necessarily going to spend enough time to feel confident talking about it. And look at a shithead like Elon Musk.

Like, I mean, we we can't possibly know what Tesla's situation would be if he could ever just shut his fucking mouth, you know, and stop getting people to associate the product with his ugly lobotomy lobotomy eyed face. Like, I think that's got to be hurting the bottom line there. And similarly, I think who would I be like, you know, to just to just be spouting off on on every current event, you know, when, you know, just by statistical odds, you know, I'm going to end up being wrong about one of them, you know, or many of them.

And we certainly aren't in an environment now where the culture is such that we're very forgiving of anybody being terribly wrong about anything.

[Lilin Lavin]
Unless we've chosen to fetishize that particular individual, and then we just put them on a pedestal and continue to pat them on the back, regardless of what crappy things they might say. Yeah.

[Lucien Greaves]
I don't want TST to be that and I don't want to give the impression in TST that we all need to be singularly aligned on absolutely everything. I think it's a dangerous place to be when people even think that when people shouldn't even aspire to that people should be interrogating their beliefs all the time. And I know there are bad actors who come in, I'm just asking questions and things like that when actually they're trying to really provoke and be trolls and that type of thing.

But I also feel like we've gotten to a point where we're too high strung about that potential to the point where we just don't listen to anything that challenges what we currently believe.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And I try and tell new Satanists or people that are joining the congregation all the time if they bring up something, well, I disagreed with this. And I'm like, well, you know, Satanism is an individualistic religion.

It's okay. You should have differences of belief from other people. We shouldn't all be the same.

We're not just mindless sheep like the Christian side of things. We are critical thinkers. So we're going to have disagreements.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. Disagreements can spark great ideas. So good things can come out of disagreements.

And I think sometimes people forget that. They get so wrapped up in the emotional part of it that they just totally forget that you can actually take a disagreement and make something good out of it. Right.

[Lucien Greaves]
And the positive part about us doing things is that we have certain lines drawn that show what ostensibly anybody in TST would believe it. Our reproductive rights advocacy, things like that. But even there, I could accept somebody in TST saying they're against abortion insofar as that applies to them, that it is something that they would never do for themselves, regardless of whatever mitigating circumstances there might be or might not be.

That's fine. I don't know how I could argue against that. I mean, I wish the anti-abortion crowd would a more personal perspective like that.

But insofar as what TST stands for, I think those are pretty obvious in the things that we do. And so these demands that we clarify on each individual topic or current event in ways that just might be over broad or overly narrow. I wish people would get over that idea that that kind of homogeneity within the organization would be a good thing.

[Lilin Lavin]
I actually do. I agree that the more diverse voices we have, the more different opinions, it actually helps us to grow and to be more active and genuine in everything as we approach it. How do you feel?

Go ahead. Sorry.

[Lucien Greaves]
There is a social scientist, Philip Tetlock, and he was investigating people who make the best predictions of the future. And they have a super forecaster website where teams of people try to set odds on given prospective events, whether they'll happen, not happen, or what nature they'll take, that kind of thing. And it's a fascinating site to look it up.

And some people are considered super forecasters in the way that they're more often right than other people. Their percentages are a lot better. Their odds of predicting the correct thing tend to be a lot higher than the normal population.

And those people, he found in his book, Super Forecasters, tend to be those without dogmatic political allegiances. The people who are willing to look most clearly at various sides of the discussion and all the different data and remove that from their own personal emotions as to what they feel the world ought to be. So, you know, there's empirical evidence that that approach, that way of thinking yields better results than isolating yourself.

If you actually thought that that was the way to go, putting yourself within an echo chamber tends to distort your thinking rather than clarify it.

[Tommy Lavin]
I agree 100% on that. Yeah, just living in an echo chamber doesn't do you any good. There's no growth there.

There's, you know, there's no, you're just having a, and that's what Elon Musk has. You know, he has an echo chamber. No matter what he says, no matter what he comments on, like you were talking about earlier, there's an echo chamber there to tell him he's right, you know, and anybody that disagrees with him is wrong.

[Lucien Greaves]
So yeah. And sometimes people are just wrong. They're not moral monsters.

Like, you know, earlier on, with my introduction to Satanism, it took on the LeVayian form as well. And to me, the whole kind of individualized, non-racialized, meritocratic, social Darwinism made sense. You know, at that age, I believed it was every person for themselves that aligned with, you know, some of the unfortunate things I felt I was seeing in the world.

You know, altruism was an illusion, that kind of thing. And then I learned more and it debunked a lot of these notions. And I had thought that population control was going to be a vital issue in my lifetime, that population growth was just going to continue exponentially.

And it would become a question of resources and that real hard questions were going to have to be asked and answered at that point. And you couldn't just avoid the discussion. And you know, that can lead you to a lot of ugly territories if it's true.

And you might not want to get there, but if you think that it's true, it might lead you there. And sometimes just correcting somebody on what the actual evidence is, you know, the birth rate is going to is, you know, is going on a decline. And, you know, we're going to be at a population decrease, you know, by the end of our lifetimes and for the foreseeable future thereafter are the projections now.

Altruism is a fact in cooperation of human existence. We are social animals. LeVay did admit to that much.

And democracies work a lot better than autocracies on almost every level. Yeah. And, you know, and especially on the ones where that should matter the most, you know, happiness and health, health, consciousness and all those types of things.

And so, you know, just to write somebody off as as a moral monster sometimes for even even depraved beliefs can be a can be can be a mistake, you know, and you have to leave some room for people to be able to reform, to reevaluate, to to be reassimilated into polite society if they can reject the radicalism of some bad and heinous ideas.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, I think that was something I liked about many people's interpretation of the fact that you have the right to be offended and you have the recognition that people are fallible. If you put those things together and you look at that, you kind of open the door to having those conversations, to reevaluating someone's behavior or someone's opinion or even your own behavior and your own opinion and things that you're supposed to kind of check yourself on.

[Lucien Greaves]
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the thing is, is I find there's a real tendency to completely redefine words now to the point where certain things are not even certain phrases are not even worth using anymore. Free speech is one.

A lot of people won't say they're against free speech, but they'll say I'm for free speech. However, hate speech or whatever. And then hate speech is whatever.

You know, there's often not not a clear delineation on what they're saying. And they're not even to ask sometimes raises their ire and makes them suspect that you were you're some kind of right wing troll or some some bullshit like that. And it's just we're just in a particularly difficult time for open discussion right now.

And I think everybody needs to realize it's not just a TST thing is, you know, everybody recognizes we're at a very polarized point in our society right now. And some of the reasons for that are very obvious. We did have a complete idiot for a president in Donald Trump, whose tendencies towards autocracy were clear and apparent, but only unrealized because he was so stupid and so incompetent.

So everybody's on high alert now while the Trump supporters are smelling blood and their opportunity to to take things even further. So it's you know, it's also not surprising that we are where we are right now. But that just makes it all the more difficult for us to do what we're doing.

But it also makes it all the more vital. It's really an opportunity for us to really kind of show who we are, to show that we can transcend these things, even the worst of circumstances that we can make a difference in this way, even when everybody else has kind of written these values off. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
And I agree that the redefining words is one of the things that it just pisses me off to know. And I'm like, no, words have meaning. You know, there's a fucking dictionary.

There's definitions and their words have an actual meaning. And to just change the meaning of it, because you don't like that meaning that, you know, it's weird that as a society, we've kind of gotten to that area. And it's on both sides, both the right and the left side.

They're they're both doing it. And it's just something that drives me up the wall. I'm like, oh, my gosh.

[Lucien Greaves]
Oh, well, things like I see even intelligent people getting into these discussions. But the question will be nothing more clear than woke or anti woke. And it's like, well, what does that mean?

And you see people then just going at it from there. It's and to me, that's insane. That's, you know, it's just there's a loaded language where people put whatever values they want onto it.

And then they argue across each other without ever really speaking to each other at all.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I think it feels like as a society, we've kind of lost the ability to speak to each other. You definitely see it on the political side. You know, me, I used to consider myself of, you know, an independent, because I would vote either way, you know, depending on what the issue is, I would vote for what I felt was the best outcome for whatever issue, not necessarily left or right.

But it seems like we have lost the ability as society to even have discussions with each other. You know, it's like you're either on this side, or you're on that side. And if you're not, fuck you, you know, and if you are, then the other side says, fuck you.

And it's Yeah, I don't know, it's is a bit like a tinderbox out there right now.

[Lucien Greaves]
Yeah, I always wondered if what it would turn out like if we did this great experiment where all new proposals and bills came in blindly, without reference to which party it originated from, who the author was, or who the signatories were, you know, when they're brought up to vote. And I think then people would realize just how little they actually know about politics.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, that would actually be a brilliant idea. They'll never do it. But that would be a brilliant way to do it.

Bill goes forward. Do you agree with it or not? Yes or no?

You know, it's like, doesn't matter if it's got no, there is no R or D next to it. It's, it's just this is the bill. This is what we want to do.

Yes or no? That's simple.

[Lucien Greaves]
You don't I've soured to the idea of identifying as left or right, because I feel like in our lifetimes alone, the definitions have shifted so dramatically as to become meaningless. Look at, I mean, look at Donald Trump, right? This is on the side of the party that was claiming that, you know, we need this moral integrity in our in our leaders above all things.

And then they get this fucking slob. Like, there's no justifying that it's a complete turnaround. It is a complete 180.

And it makes zero sense. And there's, there's several examples of that. But I also see that on those who define themselves as being on the left as well.

And free speech was one of those things. Free speech was always the battle cry of the left to need to be defended by the left at all costs, at all costs. And then suddenly the idea was that, you know, free speech was just a right wing talking point.

And that, you know, it's an outdated idea. And, and, you know, the status quo on free speech right now, the current first amendment laws are free speech, absolutism, and only meant to defend Nazis. And then you lose me there.

You know, you lose me there too. And it's a complete turnaround from before. And, you know, even the shift from colorblind politics to identity politics is a complete reversal in some ways.

And it's always described as, you know, the right has gone further to the right with Trump, left has gone further to the left by abandoning, you know, leftist values. And, you know, at least in my mind, it's become meaningless. And I feel like identifying Democrat or Republican left or right is more just an announcement that you have a tribal affiliation.

And I really think that people need to be standing clear on principles that they know can be universally applied in such a way as to minimize government intervention and minimize, you know, human suffering and, and, you know, or outcomes of the social environment, you know, it's, it's a, it's a delicate balance, but we won't get there without neutral and generally applied principles.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Libertarian is another one that they, you know, they kind of took in and, you know, the, the right is sort of rebranded. And it's like, it drives me nuts when I see people that claim to be libertarian and they're like, and I'm anti-abortion.

And I'm like, well, hold on, you know, the whole point of being a libertarian is that you want less government. You don't want government making decisions for you, your body, all of that, you know, depending on how far libertarian you go, drugs can be legal, you know, sex work is, is legal and all that. And yet you see libertarians out there or people claiming to be libertarians and they're against everything, every single principle.

And I'm like, okay, you just found a word that you thought sounded neat and you just ran with it.

[Lucien Greaves]
All right. Sometimes they don't even abandon what they claim their principles are. They just defy them in, in what they actually do.

Like, you know, the Republicans for a long time now have been declaring themselves small government, but nobody grew the government like George W. Bush. They didn't mention that, you know, the deficit grew huge under Trump.

He was not, you know, he was not like this, uh, uh, thrifty, uh, he wasn't a Republican. He was, yeah, he, he, he was, yeah, he was quite the federal spender and, and, but, but they, they haven't abandoned that, that image of, of actually being the ones who are, who are tough on these, these issues. But I feel like that too, just kind of underscores the point that there really isn't a set of consistent values that we can attribute to the left and the right.

[Lilin Lavin]
And I think that's a disservice that we do as a society is to just have these absolutist boxes that we tick off and decide that that's what we have to align ourselves with societally. And that this ideology has to always be all encompassing and only be what we align with forever.

[Lucien Greaves]
Right. And, and I mean, one, one of the worst things about it, although I think is just people's insistence that the tactics not be interrogated, that we don't actually look at whether or not we're being effective in what we do. And one of the things that was, uh, most disturbing to me was in 2020 when, uh, the, uh, when the protests were breaking out over the murder of George Floyd was when, uh, when a statistics guy, uh, tweeted out, uh, research stating that, you know, in an election year riots on the street, that kind of thing tended to, uh, tended to favor a Republican candidate.

And I knew the research he was talking about, and I don't think the research was biased. It has, it's shown that traditionally from like the time of Nixon, I believe that, uh, you know, the, the unfortunate, uh, image that the Republicans have of being the law and order party, you know, they, they benefit from that kind of social unrest. And, you know, this guy who tweeted that was, you know, himself, uh, he identified as a liberal, uh, you know, had, uh, overall seemed left-wing ideals and ideas.

Um, you know, he was, he was what you would call canceled for that and ended up getting fired for his job from his job because the idea was that this wasn't the time, you know, this, this wasn't the time to, to suggest that, you know, these people who are feeling this pain and expressing this might be wrong. And I understand what they're saying there, but I also feel that that's exactly the time, you know, when, when we have this energy, when we're looking at what we can do to rectify this situation to try to, you know, bring some, some reform or overhaul to the system, like, uh, you know, what's the most effective way to go about this? Uh, I, I don't feel like that's ever an irrelevant question.

Even if it's a difficult question, it should be the primary question. And then that was a real difficult one for me to, uh, to come to grips with when I saw that happen, because I also felt that there, but for the grace of Satan, I didn't tweet the similar thing myself because I was already aware of that research. I was already concerned about that being an outcome.

Yeah. Let's see.

[Tommy Lavin]
Okay. So let me think of, uh, I had a couple, maybe not so heavy. I was like, all right, all right.

Where can we go from here?

[Lilin Lavin]
Change of pace. Yeah. We're going to go into more of the lighthearted stuff.

So what is it that you're most proud of when you look at everything that's happened throughout, not only your life, but where you are today? What do you look back on fondly?

[Lucien Greaves]
I'm, I'm still very proud of the fact that we, we have created a space for people who felt that, you know, the idea of a religious community was completely out of bounds for them, that they would never have that kind, that sense of sense of community with, with people in this way, people who left evangelical Christianity, you know, but really, really missed having, uh, having, uh, their religious, uh, friend group around them, you know, felt they lost their, their family.

They, they, they lost any sense of, of, uh, internal narrative and, and they didn't expect to find it again anywhere else without having to, uh, to compromise their, uh, their own sanity or, or, uh, or, or intelligence, you know? Yeah. So a lot of people who felt, uh, outcast by traditional religions because, because they were gay because of trans, because of whatever it is that the traditional religions tend to, uh, heap hate and shame upon them for, you know, they just didn't feel like they would, they would have a religious place to identify in, and, and, and they have that now, and I think that's, that's what I'm most proud of.

[Lilin Lavin]
When you look at the influence that Satanism has had under TST on other religions, what do you think the biggest impact has been in the greater sphere of religion?

[Lucien Greaves]
I, you know, it's, it's hard to say. It's always hard to kind of look at the counter factuals, you know, and, and, and, uh, try to anticipate what would be if we weren't here. But I do know that we are brought into discussion fairly often now when, uh, when some kind of theocrat, uh, is demanding that they, they put some religious representation in the public square.

And so I think we do make people think twice. And I think, uh, we have, you know, had some kind of influence on other religious organizations when it comes to throwing in their hat on reproductive rights and other such things. I think we've been, well, I know we've been very undercredited, you know, by the media when it comes to these tactics and they'll tend to wait to, you know, to the point when, uh, another religious group throws in before they'll, they'll mention some of the things we're doing at all.

Uh, but I, I do think that we've kind of set a template for some, uh, to, to make their argument for their own autonomy against, you know, the Christian claims of what religious liberty should look like, you know, to their exclusive benefit. So, you know, I, I, uh, but the more the merrier, you know, I really hope as time goes by that, uh, we do find more religious groups demanding their place in the public square and showing these politicians just how untenable as bullshit is that they need to stop, you know, trying to appeal to, uh, uh, some narrow base by, by, by just making these maneuvers that end up just leading to tedious legal battles.

Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
I mean, in our very home state, we, we see a lot of this on a frequent basis and it sometimes makes it hard to look forward to positives. We've got people trying to build a invisible wall between us and states that provide abortion. We have schools promoting the Bible as the reason why there should be corporal punishment.

We have so many things that happen and yet TST, what I'm very proud of being a part of is there to say, you know, no, this isn't okay. And people are going to do something and then encouraging them to do it and showing them how and helping give them that helping hand to move forward in that action is something I love seeing. It's, it's a way to challenge things on that religious basis and yet, you know, still be human, still be approachable.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Texas is kind of like a little theocracy with inside of the United States.

[Lucien Greaves]
Yeah. And you know, the, the thing that disappoints me though, is just that I feel that these theocratic efforts could easily be undermined and destroyed if we just focused on it. You know, TST is one thing and we keep focused on what we're doing even while people within TST try to bring us off course from that mission and demand that we do a million other things before we've even established our own legal religious rights in any definitive way.

But I feel like that lack of focus is so prevalent now that activism has become defined by one's willingness to join an organization just to just to destroy it. That this, this idea of being an uncompromising radical has taken hold of people in a way that they imagine that their failure to actually do anything is, is noble in the way that the COS would present it. I feel like we've really crippled ourselves to the point that it's embarrassing that this minority political influence of theocrats is getting its way and they're only getting their way because they're engaging in ways that we're generally not.

They have lobbyists, they get judges on the bench, they impose their will on people knowing that the other side is generally too dysfunctional and, and too far removed from the processes to even put up a real credible fight. And that's the real shame of it. Like the, the, the theocratic movement in the U.S. is by far not a majority movement. They, they are definitely the minorities in, in, in every way. In so far as, as, as people agreeing with their opinions go, most people do not want to go in that direction. And we would so handily defeat them if we could just get our shit together and focus on, on beating this problem down.

Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
I, I often will, will say that, you know, we, we do a better job beating ourselves up than, than the other side does. You know, we, we, we tear ourselves apart. We don't need the other side to tear, tear us apart because we're doing a damn good job of, of it all by ourselves without any help at all.

[Lilin Lavin]
But it's a common theme now, right? Where you self cannibalize and it's seen throughout not only the government, but every community has this issue where there's these people that continue to, to jump up for the attention or for whatever it is. And then they create this self cannibalizing situation where all the infighting takes away from any possible forward progress.

[Lucien Greaves]
Yep. Well, there is good news there. And I feel like the good news is that, you know, we've been seeing this tear apart the opposition to the MAGA autocrats for all this time now.

But I also kind of feel like we're starting to see the beginnings of these divisions on the hard right as well. And I think we see that in their response to the satanic temple. I've seen a real change in one of those, the interesting things I saw was that, uh, you know, uh, Glenn Beck's news agency, the blaze, uh, came up with this bullshit story, uh, that was supposed to, that was suggesting that Fox news was giving money to the satanic temple.

And what the story really was. Yeah. Is that there was an employee portal in which Fox employees could give money that would then be price matched by Fox news corporation to any qualifying charities.

And, you know, there's like over a hundred thousand charities on this, on this list. It's probably just a neutral list of qualifying charities, one of which happened to be the satanic temple. So they conflated this to act like Fox was giving money to TST. And I ended up being on OANN talking about this. And I told them, this is just a right-wing purity spiral. It's what the, and I told them this, knowing that it would fall on deaf, deaf ears, that they wouldn't stop this. But I also kind of wanted to have it on record so I could gloat about it later.

But I really feel like that seems to be the way they're, they're going to start going. And I think, uh, once they start going down this path, they'll collapse themselves. And I think we'll only have them to thank for it because we've been collapsing ourselves for so long.

We hardly did anything to stop them on our own.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. It's one of those live by the sword, die by the sword situations.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. It's something that we talk about a lot. Um, you know, is that it is just even in our personal discussions is that the, this MAGA Christian nationalists, they're really loud.

They have people in the right places, but they are the minority, you know, unless they can get other people from, from there to vote their way. And I think where they really shot themselves in the foot was when they went after abortion. And, you know, when you saw the Dobbs decision, it was like, I think people on the right started looking around and saying, holy shit, this actually happened.

What else? You know, and then they started paying attention to, um, you know, these, these extremists and radicals who have been there saying that they're going to do this the whole time. Just nobody listened to them.

[Lucien Greaves]
Well, that's also the peril of defining yourself by a fight. And, uh, you know, once they overturned Roe versus Wade, it seemed like there were a lot of people who don't know where to go after that. And when you have that, you know, you might start having people just turn on each other.

And I never wanted us TST to really be defined by any current battle against the theocrats right now. Right. I want us to be an organization that we're, we're the problem of, of encroaching theocracy to completely disappear tomorrow, that we would have enough affirmative values of our own enough of a sense of purpose as just a community to carry on without trying to manufacture problems.

Right. Right. That makes sense.

[Lilin Lavin]
I think that it's, there are aspects of that there. I think it does exist. And I think we can continue to grow that it just takes people to recognize what is it that they're trying to get out of a community and how do they help foster that and build on that and invite other people to participate in what they want and add that into the voices.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, I think TST might, might lose some of the, um, you know, the, the, um, I don't know who, what, one of the advocates, the activist section. Yeah.

But again, when I look at TST, the, the, the thing that I got out of TST leaving COS was a community, you know, something you brought up earlier is there just really never was a true community in church of Satan. It was like, well, everybody's online, go find it yourself, you know, and that, that's kind of the way that they, they, they did and still do kind of go about that. Whereas TST, we actually have congregations, you can find a community of people.

And like you mentioned, there's people that have left the evangelical church and they're not missing the God part. They're not missing all of that. They're missing the community, the friends that they had there.

And I think that's something that even if we're able to get rid of theocracy, TST can still carry with it and, and still, you know, have a, have a true community. Right.

[Lucien Greaves]
Right. That, that's the hope. And, you know, I, I feel like the way we go about it though, with respect to democratic principles and things like that means that there's always going to be some tension between ideas.

There's always going to be some dispute about what are the appropriate limits of the authority over congregations? What are the appropriate limits similarly, you know, to federalism over the states though, you know, people don't people think that any of that, any tension existing between those, you know, is a sign of dysfunction in the sign that a new system needs to be in the offing, but really, you know, in a certain way, that's to me, a sign of success, you know, it's a sign of success because we tolerate that tension.

We know that that tension makes us better. We know that we should have those discussions. And it's not that I'm opposed to people having criticisms by any means of the types of things that we're doing, but I just don't like it when there's an agenda to demand homogeneity organization wide, you know, I think we need to maintain that room for people's personal independence.

We need to err on the side of the maximum autonomy for congregations that we can give and that kind of thing. And, you know, allow people to have, you know, more expansive visions for what they can be and what they can do with this. And, you know, it's with those things in mind that I want, you know, that I hope we have a ministry that can internalize that on a congregational level to make this that place for individuals to come into congregations, something where it's not that we're trying to beat people into some dogmatic perspective, but to really maybe help them realize who they are and what they can do.

Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
And I think you brought up a good example before, when you, you were talking about abortion and that, you know, somebody might have a belief that they are against abortion themselves, but they're still for people to make their own choice. And it's something that I talk about a lot is, is that's what choice is, is choice is saying, well, I necessarily wouldn't do this, but I'm not going to stop somebody else from doing it because that's their choice. And, you know, there shouldn't be an environment where everybody jumps on that person.

Then they say, no, you have to be okay with you getting an abortion. It's like, no, no, you have to respect that people have their own individual beliefs and that's okay. It's okay for them to have a different belief than you.

As long as, you know, at the end of the day, they're like, I still believe in choice for other people though, you know, so, and you could take that and then go across any other political.

[Lucien Greaves]
I mean, to me, that's similar to my position where I feel like I don't care if I'm misunderstood or we're misunderstood so long as people recognize that we have the rights to do what we do, that we have equal access to the public forums, that we do have our civil liberties, that religious liberty is defined by our ability to engage in the rituals we do and identify that the way that we do. I don't need these people to love me and I think that's why that's where a lot of people go wrong. They want to go beyond, you know, just having their legal rights and want to be loved and respected as well.

I really don't give a fuck about the respect of some ignorant redneck who doesn't, who just has decided to hate me. To me, it's enough if they can say, all right, the first amendment is what it is. I understand why we have these principles in place and I may not like you, but fuck it, that's what this is and you're able to do what you do.

Good enough, you know, fucking good enough. You can go home and hate me all you want, but so long as you realize that that's the way it is, then I don't fucking care and I don't understand the amount of time some people put in on social media demanding that people also understand them or respect them in certain ways where it's just like, I just feel like that's a losing battle.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, yeah. I don't care if people like me or don't like me, you know, it's, it's, that's their decision, you know, it's, I, I want to convey a message and, you know, I hope that my message is right. Sometimes I'm wrong and I'm okay with that because that's how you grow.

You know, if, when you're wrong, that, that gives the opportunity for growth, as long as you're able to recognize that, you know, something you did was wrong or whatnot. But yeah, I don't need people to like me. I don't need to, you know, as long as they, like you said, agree, you know what, you're right.

The, the, you know, that first amendment applies here and.

[Lilin Lavin]
And look, it's not healthy to just be a yes man and agree with everything. I mean, there's things I haven't liked or agreed that you've said, or that you've said, Lucian. So there's, you know, that's, that's our right as people is not to agree.

Life is a series of relationships of varying types and kinds. And the fact is we're not always going to like each other and it's learning how to navigate that difference and be okay with it. That's going to make the difference.

[Lucien Greaves]
Yeah. Right. And the thing is, I don't want to be seen as somebody who has this kind of infallible conduct and, and words of wisdom with everything he says.

Like, sometimes I just say stupid shit. Sometimes I say stupid shit. Cause I think it's funny.

Sometimes it's not funny. You know, like I, I, I don't, I don't think I'm an appropriate person to take that seriously, but I also don't feel that I'm any bit underqualified for the job I'm doing. I just feel like nobody should be held to that standard because nobody can live up to it and nobody should pretend that they can.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. I think that's always been a frustrating aspect of being involved in ministry or the congregation leadership is that sometimes people will come up to you and say, well, did you hear this stupid shit that Lucian said the other day? What do you think about that?

And I was like, well, you know, I think that he has a right to say whatever the hell he's going to say. Don't you get angry about how that reflects on you? I'm like, how does it reflect on me?

Did he talk about me? Did I miss something?

[Tommy Lavin]
Did he mention my name? You know, um, um, you know, or they, when they get upset, if I say, well, yeah, I heard it and I don't have an issue with it. You know, it's okay that you do, but I don't.

So yeah. Let's see what else.

[Lucien Greaves]
I'm trying to think of some real stupid shit to say that's still within the bounds.

[Lilin Lavin]
You know, I'm not trying to get in trouble. I don't need to be in another article.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Okay. Here, here are a couple of just, uh, you know, sort of pop type questions for you.

Uh, you know, sort of get to know Lucian. Um, what's your favorite food?

[Lilin Lavin]
Uh, shit. I wouldn't personally eat that, but okay.

[Lucien Greaves]
Yeah. No, I don't often eat shit. I don't, I don't know.

I don't know. I'll take what I can get. I'm pescatarian.

So, I mean, there's a lot of good seafood around here.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I've been up to, um, the Boston area quite a few times in my career. Yankee lobster.

[Lucien Greaves]
So, but I far, I far too often just drink Soylent or something.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yes. You and Anderson Cooper, apparently. So, but, uh, yeah.

So if you could just sit with anybody, it doesn't have to be someone famous. It could be anybody and just sit and talk with them. Who would you pick?

[Lucien Greaves]
My cat.

[Lilin Lavin]
Fair enough.

[Tommy Lavin]
I'd probably pick my cat too. I am. I'm okay with that answer.

[Lilin Lavin]
All right. Do I go with the douchey one? If you could read only one book for the rest of your life, what would you pick?

[Lucien Greaves]
Oh shit. That's a rough one because my stuff, my, uh, my books are mostly, uh, nonfiction. So once, once I know them, I kind of know them.

Yeah. Um, man, I am, I'm, I'm terrible for these kinds of things.

[Tommy Lavin]
It works though. We'll let you have the hook. We won't ask anymore.

[Lucien Greaves]
I was like, Oh, we can, we can ask a couple of these, but you know, I've taken like these personality tests too. And I guess it's just something about my, the way my brain functions. Like, you know, you asked me a question, I feel like, ah, you know what?

Like one, one book will be my answer one day and another will be the next. But also when they ask like a question, static questions about personal character, I feel like, you know what, tomorrow I might be in a different mood and this would be a I don't know what this tells me. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
I, I, I get that because a lot of times when people ask me questions, the same sort of questions, I draw a blank because I'm like, fuck, I, I don't know. Like you said today, I like something tomorrow, like something else, a personality test. There's actually, we have a really funny story about that.

[Lilin Lavin]
Cause you're not gonna.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. So we, we took a personality test for, for work, um, you know, so we can all see, you know, what type of personalities.

[Lilin Lavin]
You may have heard of it. It was called a discus assessment.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And so, um, London got hers, I got mine and she's like, where, where'd you rank on here? And I was like, well, I ranked a D and she was like, no, no, no.

What else did you? And I'm like, I ranked a D what the fuck are you talking about? And we almost got into an argument over it.

And it was this circle. And I guess the little dot could be anywhere within the circle, but I was actually out on the line, right in the middle of the D. So I thought the dot had to be on the outside line that you couldn't be anywhere else within that circle.

And it wasn't until I saw hers that I was like, oh shit, you can actually be like anywhere in here. Oh fuck. Yeah.

D for dick bag.

[Lilin Lavin]
No, but no, it was, it was good. It was fun. I liked the only part I actually came up with that I enjoyed about it was it helped me interact with you better because it talked about ways you could interact with different personality types and some of it was actually useful.

[Tommy Lavin]
So yeah, yeah, definitely. So, all right. Well, I don't want to take up too much more of your time, you know, again, thank you for jumping on, on, on a Saturday night.

I really appreciate that. And, you know, kind of being our first interview you know, we'll probably get better at doing these as we do more and more of them. And I'd love to have you back on in the future.

[Lucien Greaves]
Yeah, no, I enjoy to check in with me anytime I'm, I'm around. Awesome.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, thank you, Lucian. Hail Satan. Hail Satan.

[Lucien Greaves]
Hail Satan. Good night.