Ep.29: 2024 - The Year of Satanic Solidarity and Action

# Satanists Nextdoor
# Episode 29: 2024 - The Year of Satanic Solidarity and Action

[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. Today, we were going to talk a little bit about SatanCon and how it was cancelled for 2024, but more importantly than it being cancelled, the reaction or lack of a negative reaction from the community. When I saw this first come out, I was like, oh, shit, here we go again.

But I've been very happy with what I've seen so far. I've seen unity throughout the community. I've seen people asking, okay, what can we do instead?

And things like that. And that's what Satanists are supposed to do. Hey, something didn't happen.

Okay. There's some disappointment there. That's an okay emotion.

And what can I do?

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. And I think that's a good time to try and if you're confused about it, to reach out maybe to the executive ministry, since they put it out there and just say, you know, I saw this call for unity. I know that we're trying to build bigger, stronger, better community.

What does that look like? How can I be a part of that? What are we going to try and build together here?

And, you know, I encourage everyone that's confused or curious or wants to be involved. Let's get that conversation going.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And let's, again, let's keep it positive. 2024 is going to be a year from hell.

I mean, when you think politically, at least in America, you know, I understand overseas, other countries, maybe not so bad, they still might be looking at what the fuck's going to happen in America, because that could affect us. But, you know, we were literally this year fighting for Oh, sure.

[Lilin Lavin]
I mean, our democracy that, you know, again, let's not get into the Constitutional Republic thing. Yeah, we have a democratic process that we use for voting here. I don't love the two party system.

I definitely think there's lots of room for improvement on many different facets.

[Tommy Lavin]
Sure.

[Lilin Lavin]
But, um, you know, we have enough things right now as a society to be focused on working to build something better. And I think as Satanist in particular, as any community that is looking at what might happen, and wondering what is going to look like for me, if it doesn't go well, I think as leaders in a community, we have a unique capability to kind of have that pulse of our community in mind to help provide a strategy to help provide a structure to help provide stability in a time that is going to feel very chaotic, very unstable, and scary for a lot of people.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, I mean, very scary, because, you know, one of the obvious person on the Republican side, I mean, let's, I'm not playing any pretend fantasy world that the current front runner, these other people are going to magically, you know, rise up, you know, the fact that the current front runner Trump, is that by how, you know, the amount of points that there's that much distance between him and the other candidates, with everything we know about Trump, I'm not talking about things we don't know, or kind of the things we know, you know, he was convicted in, you know, civilly of, of rape, you know, right, the aging Carol, you know, participated in an insurrection, I, you know, January 6, just kind of came the anniversary of that.

And we have lawmakers who on January 7, a couple years ago, right after their life was endangered, we're like, Oh, my God, this can never happen again. Trump crossed the line to now they're like, I was just kind of a tour that, you know, kind of went a little bit bad.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. They can paint whatever picture they want and try to recreate history, which is so common with so many aspects of our historical record, you could go back before I even existed. And the same thing happened with other powers that be trying to re write things for their own purposes.

I sat there mortified watching it live on TV. It wasn't because the news that I happen to have on was pushing a narrative, I changed the channel, I looked at different options for what was happening. And you know what they were all showing, they were showing a group of disenfranchised people wearing MAGA merch, wearing Confederate flags, wearing all manner of different things, Trump, with flags, with flagpoles, which I think was the most disturbing part.

They were going around with flagpoles, some with spear tips. They were hitting people with these flagpoles. They were hitting police officers with flagpoles, they were busting through barriers, they were breaking windows, they were climbing scaffolding, and they were acting like crazed animals.

Just really hyped up from a speech they had just sat through where the person at the time he was the president continually talked about how they've been wrong, that the people have been disenfranchised, that everything was manipulated, that they just continually picked apart the system that we have in place, flawed as it may be, where people participated in a voting process, a legal voting

[Tommy Lavin]
process.

[Lilin Lavin]
Do we all think there's things that could be improved there? Abso-freaking-lutely. Do I think that some massive voter fraud happened and that Donald Trump actually won that election?

No. I do not. Do I believe that things were manipulated in certain areas for different things?

Sure. But I don't believe overall, overwhelmingly, that this particular election was geared to not allow Trump to win. What I think happened is he lost because he's a selfish, self-imposed dictator.

Narcissist. Who wants desperately to be what he idolizes, which are people like Kim Jong-un, which are people like Vladimir Putin, and people like that are who he constantly talks about these beautiful relationships that he has. Guys, wake up.

Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
You know, and so I was, when this announcement about Satan gone came out, I was a little disappointed because this year, at least, it sounded like it might fall on the time of the year where we could go and, oh, by the way, for the future Satan Con committee.

[Lilin Lavin]
Like, it's not about us, but.

[Tommy Lavin]
It's not about us, but could you please schedule Satan Con so that it falls like in the summer or something like that so people with children can attend? Would be really nice. No, I mean, whatever is going to work for the majority of people.

I know. But it would be cool. Yeah.

Cause this is like the one that it sounded like we were going to be able to go to. And so I was, I was a little bit excited about it. And, but, you know, at the same time I understood, I was like, yeah, this isn't, this isn't the time, this isn't the place.

And, and I was, I was holding my breath. I was like, oh my gosh, we just, you know, we just had a podcast about, you know, all this sort of stuff. And so.

[Lilin Lavin]
No, it, so it did make me just like, you know, we talked about this. I was worried that there would be a lot of angry, resentful messages or negative commentary. And I didn't see that.

And for those that haven't necessarily seen it though, I'm not sure how, but it's possible. The announcement that I saw go out publicly was the year 2024 will be a pivotal in our ongoing battle against theocracy. Our commitment to this cause requires us to decide our, or I'm sorry, dedicate our energy and resources to preparing for the challenges we will face.

With this in mind, after thoughtful deliberation, we've made the decision to postpone our next SatanCon event to 2025. Looking ahead, we are enthusiastic about devoting this year to fortifying TST's mission and aligning our efforts with our core initiatives. Although the absence of SatanCon in 2024 is disappointing, we are filled with optimism for the future.

We want to express our sincere appreciation to the members of the SatanCon committee. Their dedication and hard work have been invaluable in shaping our community. And for this, we are profoundly grateful.

So that's a lot of positive things that were said. I don't see it again as a negative. You know, as we talked about it, I think it is a good opportunity and it's something that a lot of people have asked for, you know, how do we all work together to make sure TST is strong and that we're communicating well with one another.

Another thing that I often hear from the global TST community is, you know, how can we participate better in TST because I know the United States has a lot of crazy things going on. It naturally affects things throughout the world and within an organization that is so American-centric. But how do we connect more with the global community?

How do we work together to create cohesion and create opportunity for one another to find support throughout the organization? So I think this is a good place for us to move forward from and ask how we can participate, what participation looks like, how we can provide some of the things we would like to see, whether or not we have tangible plans. That's one thing.

We can start to put those together. But this is a good time now to formulate what that might look like, what we might need, what we might like to see, and kind of start putting that together into something actionable. Because like they said, you know, there is a chance that theocracy is very much knocking at the door.

[Tommy Lavin]
Darrell Bock Yeah. I mean, it really is. So I want to say thank you to every member of TST that took the news, was disappointed, but moved on and just kind of took it in stride.

And, you know, some of the congregations have done things themselves. I know one was already in the works, but before this, you know...

[Lilin Lavin]
Chase Actually two. I know that the Dirty South region was already looking to do some kind of thing, because we usually do something yearly, but there has been because of COVID and life, there was kind of a gap there. And then I believe Florida was also looking to put something together, just because, you know, it's nice sometimes with our regions, we can't always travel as far as some of the events have been.

So it's nice to have something maybe a bit more in our area to look forward to. Not that I'm looking forward to Florida, per se, but the people in Florida...

[Tommy Lavin]
Darrell Bock The people in Florida, the event in Florida, but yeah. Chase Act Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Do I do I care if DeSantos gets butthurt about it? No. Do I love hanging out with other fellow Satanists that are dealing with the same sort of things Texans are?

Absolutely. Because we uniquely in the South know from the perspective of holy crap, this could be so much worse. And it's good to be able to talk to people who are sharing the same stressors that you are.

[Tommy Lavin]
Darrell Bock Yeah. And so, I mean, I was happy to see that because, you know, at the end of the day, I think that's part of what has missed when things have gone awry is somebody or a group of somebody will get upset at TST or EM because something didn't happen or a cause didn't get as much attention or something like that. And instead of saying, what can we do?

At Satanist, we are sort of in charge of our emotions, we're in charge of our actions, we're in charge of all that sort of stuff. So something didn't happen the way that I wanted it to. What can I make it?

What can I do to make it better or make it happen the way that I want it? And then take action and do it. And I'm just really, really, really proud of the community and what I've seen so far.

[Lilin Lavin]
Chris Yeah. And there are lots of things that we can do, whether you're in congregation leadership, whether you're in a congregation, whether you're just a Satanist floating around wondering, what is it that we can accomplish? There are tons of things going on right now.

So there are committees that you can be involved in. There are initiatives that you can reach out and get involved in. If you're not in TST, there are community events that you can get involved in.

There's atheist organizations out there that are trying to work together to create different change and create different opportunity. Freedom from Religion is another organization out there that's actively doing things to deal with some of the theocratic stress that we're all dealing with so heavily. So there are lots and lots and lots of opportunities if you feel so compelled to go out there and to do things to actually create change.

Darrell Bock Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
And we'll always have another chance to get together. Sometimes things happen. Life happens.

And when it's like, okay, this didn't work, we'll get together. When will the next one be? I don't know, maybe 2025, as long as we're not a theocracy and we won't be put in prison for gathering or who knows what they'll...

[Lilin Lavin]
Chris No, that's a very good thing. So I mean, yeah, I don't know what to expect. And we'll be right along with you talking about the things we're seeing in the world and the things that we can and can't do about those crazy things we might be seeing.

So I guess the thing I'm going to start with since it's January, right? Aside from the fact that my birthday happens to be in January, is to talk about other important things that we can be doing, right? So now's a good time to register to vote.

Make sure your registration is up to date. Make sure that you're dealing with some of the things like Texas. If you have an outstanding ticket, a couple hundred thousand people just lost the ability to vote because guess what?

They had outstanding tickets and communication wasn't really good around that. And they decided the way to deal with that was to take away people's IDs.

[Tommy Lavin]
Darrell Bock Yeah, I think it was 600,000 people, they removed the ability to vote because they had outstanding tickets.

[Lilin Lavin]
Chris So, you know, that being, that's a Texas problem. But throughout the country, now's the time to make sure your voter registration is up to date. Talk to people about that day.

See if you can't, it's January. We've got a ways until the actual election comes up. Start taking that day off, folks.

If they're going to make it a holiday, they're not going to make it a holiday. Look, if they're not going to make it a holiday, go ahead and let's plan something around it. Make it an event to remember.

Make it something you participate in and turn it into something positive. You know, maybe spend most of that day in line voting. Maybe you plan actually for early voting.

If early voting is available in your area, take a day off during that. Make it into time that not only you go out there and you put your voice and you act on what your ideology aligns with, but you also turn into time with your family, turn into time with your friends, turn into time for yourself. Do positive things because this is going to be a stressful year.

[Tommy Lavin]
Darrell Bock Yeah, I was just about to say, if your state allows early voting, take advantage of that. It normally is so much easier than trying to wait in line on the day of. I mean, many times we walk in and walk right out because we do do early voting.

And also remember, don't just vote for the big every four years. There's a lot of shit that happens between that that affects the laws that are put into place for the voting that happens every four years. I mean, they put judges in place, they put all sorts of stuff in place, but then they can try and manipulate and gerrymander school boards.

Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Chase Clymer If you're a parent or if you're someone that cares about education, the structure of your school board is incredibly important. If you don't have a kid in the school, it still matters what people are being taught, how they're being taught and the people behind that structure. When again, you come back to states like Texas, some of the things that are being put in place that are going to be a conversation this year are the chaplains in school, for example.

That has to be voted on at the board level. So the people on the board obviously are a very important component to how that comes together. And I don't know what that's going to look like.

I don't know how many schools are even going to push that. But I do know from actual evidence that I've seen, schools are reading Bible verses during school announcements. Schools are doing different things to push religion in the school.

These things are happening. They're not just happening in Texas, but I know for a fact they're happening in Texas because I have seen it. People have shared with me videos, evidence that there are prayers being read from the Bible during school announcement time, during school hours.

That is a problem for me. Darrell Bock That is a massive problem.

[Tommy Lavin]
And I always look at schools, even for people that say, I don't have kids, so it doesn't matter. Well, at some point, hopefully, you will live long enough that the people in school now are the ones making the decisions. And that will affect you.

So yes, it's not an immediate effect, but it does affect you. And it does affect the way that our youth votes when they come of age to vote. I mean, people can start to vote at 18, as long as they don't change the voting age, which they were trying to do at some point.

But they can vote at 18. So it does matter what people are being taught, even if you're not in school. So yeah, just keep those sort of things in the back of your mind.

[Lilin Lavin]
John Dickerson So again, it's January. What can you do? You can talk to your friends, you can put together ride shares, because a lot of people, they can't get to voting locations.

You have the time, and time is very precious. We don't just get reimbursements of time. You have the time right now to start planning to have an actual active idea of how you're going to do this.

I don't care how you vote, who you vote for. That's your choice. And that's always going to be something I support.

It's not my business how you vote. What I care about is how does it affect the society that I live in? You know, is it going to create something that will be positive for us overall?

Or is it going to start limiting our rights further and further to the point where we're not talking about history, we're not talking about people's rights, we're not respecting individuals' private choices? How far do you want it to go? Because it's already going to very scary, uncomfortable places.

[Tommy Lavin]
Darrell Bock Hell, I mean, depending on how far it goes, you know, can we even have gatherings as non-churches? John Dickerson Can we even do these podcasts? Darrell Bock Can we do the podcast?

I mean, is a future SatanCon even a possibility? I mean, these are, unfortunately, serious questions at this point. These aren't like, what ifs, you know?

I mean, there were so many, well, Roe will never go away. I mean, we've seen this already.

[Lilin Lavin]
We've seen the shit happen. John Dickerson The thing that really frustrates me is a lot of the states that participated in the erosion of Roe, which whether or not you want to have or seek an abortion, that is a private choice. I will always support whether or not you want to do it.

As long as you decide to do it, that's all that matters to me. And when I say decide, I don't mean so-and-so really made me feel like I was a worthless human being, and so I went and did it, and I regret doing it. That's not choosing.

That is being coerced with negative consequences and emotional manipulation to do something. I want you to think about how will this look in my life? How does this affect my body, my future, my goals?

Is this something that I want? Is this something I don't want? There are positives to parenting, there are negatives to parenting.

There are positives to abortion, there are negatives to abortion. And if I told you different, I would be lying. There are emotional, lifelong consequences when you talk about both things.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Well, and you know, it's yet another example of something TST has done.

[Lilin Lavin]
To effect change.

[Tommy Lavin]
To effect change. You know, the New Mexico abortion clinic. You know, it's, it's, you know, it's, it was, it's a good start.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yes. Samuel Lito's mom, satanic abortion, the abortion clinic, the same sack abortion clinic out there. It's a really great thing.

And they offer sometimes free opportunities for people to get the care that they need. And that's not free because they don't have to pay for it, guys. It's free because they eat the cost.

So when you're involved with organizations like this, if you believe in what they're doing, consider going over and donating. I'm not telling you you have to donate, but if you like what they're doing, if you want to see it continue, please consider just adding a small contribution to that.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, and, you know, so again, TST as a whole, as the organization does a lot. Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
I mean, they really do. We got to participate with a group of folks from Texas and with the leader of the Protect Children Project, Eliphaz Costas. We were able to go and join some folks to, to stand up for children's rights, to stand up.

And they're not young children. It was a high school, but to stand up for these individuals right. Not to be abused because corporal punishment, whatever you might want to say about it, character building, bullcrap that you've bought into it is the rod spoiled child.

The argument that is used to maintain it is usually biblical. It's not because we've seen overwhelmingly that it provides a structural foundation to build long lasting, happy lives. No, it is proven scientifically through therapeutic networks, through cognitive networks, through many different facets of our actual healthcare organizations that are involved with children.

They know that repeated abuse actually creates abusive people. It creates broken people. It creates hurt people and hurt people go on to hurt more people.

So it's not helpful to, to do this, to terrorize students into doing things the way that one or one group of individuals want them done. That's not the way that we want to build or structure a societal foundation.

[Tommy Lavin]
It was just amazing to see people actually angry, angry that we didn't want people hitting children. I mean, that was like, really, this is what you're angry about.

[Lilin Lavin]
But the reason I bring up the abortion thing and the states that have participated in it is because I want you to carefully look at the fact, what states are saying that they want to provide food for starving children over the summer? What states are saying that kids deserve lunch during the school year? What states are saying that healthcare for pregnant individuals and for children matters when we're telling them that they have to have the children?

So I want you to look carefully at those things. And then I want you to consider this other facet that's probably going to affect you if it doesn't involve kids, social security, who's talking about taking away social security money that you've paid into a system to help ensure that eventually you have the opportunity to retire and to have care in your retirement. So regardless of how you vote, I wanted to look at which of these ideological alignments are actually going to help you and maintain your life and give you a foundational place to build a life from, and which ones are actually taking away your opportunities and being greedy and selfish and focusing on programs that you probably don't even want to participate in.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, there's some that will help, and there's some votes that are going to, and maybe they don't harm you, you know, you yourself, but they harm your loved ones. So when you look at what is the stance for LGBTQIA of some of the ideologies that are out there, how is that community going to be treated? How are immigrant communities going to be treated?

And again, these are all things that TST as an organization works on. And I know everybody doesn't see it all the time because it's a big organization. There's lots of things that go on in the background and there's just not, sometimes it's like when I used to work with code, you know, I would have clients that would be like, we haven't heard anything in a month.

We haven't seen anything in a month. And it's because all the code was happening on the back end. There was nothing to show, but it doesn't mean developers weren't busting their ass doing 40 or 60 hours of coding every week.

It was just, there was nothing visually to show at that time. And sometimes I think political things like this, or, you know, these type of campaigns get stuck in that sort of rut where people don't see something, so they don't think it's happening. And it is, there's a lot of work that goes into these things.

And a lot of that work is non-visual. It's stuff that you don't see.

[Lilin Lavin]
Well, and I want to be very careful to say, I think it's important to understand for, let's just say TST because it's the organization that I'm most involved with. It is the religion that I'm currently actively participating in and doing things. You know, starting at the top level, you have the executive ministry.

The executive ministry is funding legal battles. The executive ministry is supporting community initiatives. The executive ministry is actively doing things, but we are a religion.

So when we are focusing on what we're participating in, it has to align with the religious energy and our mission statement and what we're out there doing. We cannot just be out there doing everything for everyone because, again, it has to come back to how does this align with our religion? How does this show that we're actually working to accomplish things for our community?

So things that I feel we can do. TST's executive ministry is actively involved in court cases around reproductive rights. Why does that align with our religion?

Again, bodily autonomy is something that we find incredibly important. Our big values are around individuals being able to have the right to choose and the right to consent. So when it comes to things like pregnancy, there is not a bigger consent than what you will be allowed to do with your body, what you allow to happen with your body.

So those court cases align very strongly with our religious beliefs. Education is not where we're aligned. It's equality.

And in maintaining a healthy educational environment for all students. So when TST is there, rest assured, the reason is that it's not a secular safe environment for all students that are participating in that educational facility. And for example, it'll be the Good News Club is already there.

The Good News Club is providing certain programs to students and it's leaving other students out. So what TST does is they have their ASSC club, the afterschool Satan club that goes in and provides an alternative. They're not teaching about Satan.

We don't believe in Satan, so we wouldn't teach about it. But what we do believe in is critical thinking, curiosity, learning about empathy, compassion, scientific theory, to know how to test something, prove something, challenge something, to be open-minded to different perspectives and to challenge the things that we think about. So when we go into these schools and when we work with these kids, we're not there doing it from, oh, you're going to learn this religion and this is what's going to happen when you die.

And if you're not a great person, you're going to burn in hell. We're not doing that to people. We're just providing an option to kids who are getting the option to do religious stuff, whether that's what they choose that they want to do or parents have chosen that they want their kids to do.

This is another religious thing that they can participate in that isn't really even focused on religion. It's focused on being a good human and exploring humanity.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yep.

[Lilin Lavin]
And then we have trans-Satanic. Yes. That's a newer one that we have because, again, bodily autonomy.

Every individual has a right to tell people who they are, not be told by people who they are, and to express who they are in the way that they see fit. So the trans community is, again, in alignment with that. We support all individuals and the choices they make around their bodies, including trans care, whatever that might look like.

The LGBTQIA community, again, your choice what relationships you want to have. As long as they're consensual among adults and they're healthy, that's your choice. That's your right.

I'm never going to understand why other people feel it's appropriate to tell anyone how they get to live their life.

[Tommy Lavin]
How they get to live their life, what they do in their own bedroom, who they love. I mean, these are things that have no effect on anybody other than the person living it.

[Lilin Lavin]
And I'll say I do understand where some individuals are either indoctrinated into something or uncomfortable with something to the point they feel that it affects their life. They perceive it as affecting their life. That is not the same thing as actually affecting your life.

When it affects your life is when you are told you can't seek care because another person deems it inappropriate. So I could be any person that needs something. Imagine if you're a man.

You don't have to imagine, right? But imagine if you're a man and I don't feel comfortable with you being able to use Viagra because your ability to use Viagra could make me have to engage in sex that I don't want to engage in because I'll feel pressured, right? This is a very made up scenario.

But imagine that I'm in this situation where I don't like that. It makes me uncomfortable that men are seeking Viagra because Viagra means more sex. And I'm not interested in that.

And I don't think you should be able to get Viagra. So you just can't. And I'm going to champion laws where, you know, maybe in some states you might be able to get it.

But for the most part, you really have to hunt for it. And it's really hard to find. And you get to suffer with that, whether or not it's because of hormonal issues outside of your control or whether you're struggling with things.

I don't care about that because it affects me in a way that I don't care about your needs. I just care about how it might affect me. How would that make you feel?

Yeah. Because that's what that's what these people are doing. You know, what if at some point they're like, well, gender affirming care.

And I hear this is they're getting surgeries. They're getting they're getting sex change surgeries. And number one, they're not forcing that on kids.

There's very strict laws involved in the surgeries that people are getting. But do you not think gender affirming care means plastic surgery? Do you not think gender affirming care includes things that change one's body to amplify what they feel interprets their gender?

Because those are gender affirming care treatments. I'm not telling you you can or can't do it because that's not my place. But imagine if they're like, well, everyone should look like this kind of person and you have to get this kind of plastic surgery, right?

Because it where does it begin? Where does it end? I have no business telling anyone what they can do with their body, who they get to be, how they get to live, how they have sex, if they have sex at all.

Plenty of people aren't interested. There's tons of asexual people out there that are perfectly content having good friendships with people and not engaging in sexual activity at all for a variety of different reasons and a variety of different spectrums. And that's perfectly okay.

So where is the point where we get to tell people what is a heterosexual relationship have to look like? You know, do you have to do things a certain way? Do you have to have so many kids?

Like, where does this it gets so ugly? It does.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, in Texas, you can't have more than six sex toys.

[Lilin Lavin]
So, you know, again, that's because Ted Cruz has to be the largest dildo in the state of Texas. And anything that could in any way affect that is very comfortable for him to be threatening to him. So, you know, we all have to be very cognizant of Ted Cruz's issue with being compared to the, you know, we have to be very compassionate about Ted Cruz and his feelings.

And so remember, boys and girls, Ted Cruz is the largest dildo in the state of Texas, because it's very important to him. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
But the next example, I would say is the protect children.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, you know, again, aligns with our religious foundations, what we're doing as Satanist. It's not just about bodily autonomy, because yes, corporal punishment affects your bodily autonomy, the right to use a restroom. Why are we even still having this conversation?

I have to use a restroom. No, you may not you're you're going to sit there and what pee your pants. I don't understand that, you know, the right not to be bullied by authority.

Again, arbitrary authority, not cool. It's one of the reasons why I like that we're doing this stuff with the 2024. We're working together because we don't want to become our own arbitrary authority.

So we got to work together to have a community that is transparent and communicating. So everybody keep that up. But other things that we're doing, you know, it has to align with what we're out there.

What are our religious beliefs? What is our foundation? And what are we trying to accomplish?

I don't want laws to be made based on my beliefs. My religion is not applicable to the entire country. That's not tenable.

That's not fair. But the compassion, empathy, that can transfer, I can make decisions based on that. So when I'm out there doing things in public with representation, yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
And by the way, choice is not forcing a religious belief on people. No giving choice as a law is not forcing a religious belief saying you have no choice because you have to do this or you can't do this because of my religion that is forcing your religious belief on people. Giving people choice or plurality is not forcing religious beliefs on people or cramming it down their throat.

I just want to make that one clear because I've heard while you're doing the same thing. No, we're offering a choice.

[Lilin Lavin]
But we're also not saying, well, here, you know, on March 15th, 2018, this congregation had said that all people should have to be XYZ thing. And so we're going to champion this law because we really believe that that specific thing should have to apply to everyone. That is not a thing you're going to hear.

As far as I'm aware, a Satanist say, and if you do, I really have a question about what the hell you mean you're a Satanist and what is that? You don't impose yourself on other people.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Because again, that's removing choice. I hear all the time. Satanism is so selfish.

Everyone that's involved in Satanism is so selfish. There is a selfish component to being a Satanist. I get to choose myself.

I get to choose to be proud of things I do. I get to put myself before other people. However, if I'm neglecting other people, if I'm being abusive, abusive towards other people, they have the right to hold me to account for that.

And I am in fact accountable because I am the arbiter of everything I do. I'm responsible for every action, every choice. Everything I say is my responsibility.

There is no other person I get to pass it off on. I don't think that's my humanity asserting itself. I'm, I mean, we're all humans.

That is a crappy, crappy, crappy excuse.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
All of us have the same damn humanity. Whether or not you choose to be personally accountable with that humanity and the things that you do around it, that is up to you. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
You know, and, and again, that for me, Satanism is about self accountability. It, you know, I mean, that's one of the core aspects of Satan for, for Satanism for me. And yeah, it can be selfish, but selfish isn't bad.

You know, so somehow we've aligned that selfishness is, is a bad thing. It can be, but it doesn't have to be, you know, anything can be a bad thing if you abuse it.

[Lilin Lavin]
In excess. Yeah. I talk to a lot of people on a pretty routine basis.

And one of the things I think that bothers me the most is people don't feel safe to share when things are going wrong. And I think that's a big problem in our society. We're taught to shoulder our problems, our burdens, our issues, and to man up again, one of those toxic masculine things I hear people say to men, um, you know, to just not up or shut up kind of thing.

All of us have the same sort of things that we're struggling with. And I, I run into it a lot. And when I say, oh my gosh, you know, I was there last month.

I was deeply depressed. I was struggling with things. I felt like crap.

I didn't think there was a way out of it. And you know, I know where you're coming from. I don't know the exact same struggles you're going through, but you're definitely not alone in that.

And I'm really sorry that you're there right now. It shocks me how many people feel like nobody else ever stopped to say that to them.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, you had, uh, an example yesterday where one of our kids, friends, mom came to the and you just were like, Hey, are you okay? And people are just like, you know, nobody ask anybody anymore.

And it's like, you know, there's this huge lack of compassion and empathy, I guess, you know, and it's kind of ironic hearing that for me because I'm not the most compassionate person, but I think you have, there's that selfishness thing again, where you're selected with how you focus your energy.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yes. I don't think it's wrong. If you're an individual who just doesn't feel comfortable interacting with people at that level until you know them in a way that it is something that you feel that is worth your time and energy.

I don't think that's wrong. We just see it differently where I, I personally enjoy, see that's, that's selfish, right? It's not just selfless.

I personally enjoy being there for other people. I mean, it does benefit the other person too, but I find it enjoyable to, to relate to people, to hear what people have going on, to sit with them and to just check in. I know, and it's weird, right?

I'll go into the grocery store and I remember like several different people that I interact with on a routine basis that work there. And even my kids have been like, why do you do that? How do you do that?

And well, they're people, you know, people like to be seen, noticed and heard. And it's, it doesn't cost me anything to be like, Oh, Hey, I know this person. Hi.

So-and-so how's your, whoever you mentioned last time, have you been, what's going on in your life? It's crazy to me how many people don't do that and how shocking it is when someone actually takes like an interest in other people's lives.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And like you said, I'm sort of the opposite end of that, but when I'm friends with somebody, you know, when somebody breaks through that friendship barrier with me, then I am probably one of the best, most loyal friends that, I mean, you know, Hey, where do we need to bury this body?

[Lilin Lavin]
Sort of, sort of thing. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
I mean, so yes, I am, I'm very caring for the select people that I sort of let into my bubble and yes, that's selfish of me, but I have my reasons for that.

[Lilin Lavin]
And it's just my personality could be made. Your version of selfishness is no different than my version of selfishness. We just have different focuses on how we choose to expend our energy and how it affects us.

So we're both making what one could deem as selfish choice, uh, with the way that we choose to spend our time and the way that we choose to spend our energy. It just, the way I tend to like to do it is beneficial to other people in a way that yours isn't always necessarily, um, at least it's perceived that way. So there's nothing wrong with either, you know, it comes down again to choice.

How do I choose to spend my energy, my effort, my time? And we both just happen to have different ways we like to do that. And so it comes back to where we started.

Here we are in January, this news came out and people didn't choose to focus their energy on making it into, well, that's awful. And you're horrible. And what about me?

I saw a lot of people saying, okay, cool. What does that mean? What can I do?

How do I then? Okay. Satan con is not going to happen.

I still like to hang out with some folks. I'm still going to plan to do that. But what does it mean for us to connect as a community?

How do we best serve the greater community and what we're doing? So I think that's a great thing. All of you can take that and run with it and do different things or nothing at all, but whatever the case may be, because we all have our right to decide.

Um, but then politics, same kind of thing. I hear a lot of religious leaders tell people how to vote, where to vote, why to vote. I'm not going to do that.

I don't even believe Democrats, Republicans are good. Um, you know, as, as a whole, there's good parts of it, but there's crappy Republican, the crappy Democrats is you want to go liberal. You want to go conservative, whatever.

There's crappy aspects to all of it. I don't love the system as it is, but what are we trying to accomplish? How does it serve selfishly our future goals?

How does it selfishly serve the people we love? How does it, maybe you're not seeing it that way. What are we trying to accomplish people?

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And for me, selfishly for 2024, I, you know, there's two people on the ballot. Really?

Yes. There might be third parties and stuff like that. Maybe the Supreme court is going to pop up and surprise us all.

I don't think so.

[Lilin Lavin]
Is that my, my sarcastic voice comes through good.

[Tommy Lavin]
There's realistically going to be two people on the ballot. You know, yes, there'll be third parties and all this, but my selfish goal for 2024 is not to have a tyrannical authoritarian takeover America. And so all my energy will go into it.

Even if I don't necessarily like the other part, I think that, yeah, they probably could have picked a better person, but you know what? This is the choice that we have. Do we want an authoritarian dictatorship that's going to let the Christian nationalists basically take America and turn it into a theocracy or do we want to maintain our freedom?

And that's really the choice.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. I prefer freedom. Do I think that we could start putting better people on these ballots?

Yeah, I absolutely do. I do. I think we should all work together to help find better people to be on these ballots.

Absolutely. Yes, I do. Do I think there should be options for younger people, people more involved with their community, with their society?

Do I think that there should be new ideas happening? People that are more in touch with where we are today? Do I think there should be an age limit, like where it's, you know, you've aged out?

Yes, absolutely. Okay. I agree with the fundamental idea.

What you're trying to say is some people just are completely, they're just at a point in their life where they're just not able to participate or comprehend things at the level that the majority of society is living. However, there are younger people that I've seen that are incredibly, incredibly in touch with it and just so knowledgeable and so, just good options for leadership. And I have equally seen much older people that are just as passionate and lively and just, yes, their body is aged, but mentally they have an elastic, useful, curious mind and they're still doing things that is very much in touch with the majority of people.

So I hesitate to put an absolute cap, young or old. I do understand that for youth, there is a point for even myself, you know, I was in my early twenties where I was sometimes an idiot and just being an idiot was just part of the journey to figuring out who the hell I was and I didn't always make the best decisions. And I think that that's sort of universal, but it's not absolute.

Like nothing is a monolith as far as age. I don't think that's absolutely, you know, 20 year olds are all irresponsible psychos that are, you know, essentially just self-centered. There is a lot of that, but it's not every person.

So I hesitate to say like age wise, there should be an absolute number. I really do for those reasons. However, I do think that there should be some kind of guideline.

There should be some kind of training. There should be some kind of process where people understand the politics they're getting into, understand global affairs. Again, you can't be everything to everyone, but I do think we could, as a society, do a much better job preparing people to participate in this from the voting concept all the way to being a candidate.

I think there's so much more we can all do in schools as parents, as community, to engage as one another and to create a more equitable society. It's never going to be perfect. I would love to say that it will.

I don't see that happening in my lifetime. It's never going to be equal. We're never all going to be kumbaya, you know, with the perfect, you know, like life, like the federation, which again, wasn't perfect, but you know, where we have different ways of What I would like to see us all work to do is from the bottom up community level, all the way up to the White House.

How do we work together? What does it look like? How can we respect each other's privacy boundaries, choices, and still just live our own lives without going, gosh, what is Becky doing in her bedroom?

I think it's affecting me somehow. I feel uncomfortable because you know what, you're not in Becky's bedroom. And if you are, well, that's a different situation.

Yes.

[Tommy Lavin]
And hopefully you consented because that's the most important part about being in Becky's bedroom.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yes. So, I mean, no one, the government doesn't deserve to make our private healthcare decisions, whether you're a man using Viagra or you're a woman seeking abortion care, whether you're a trans individual working to transition, whether you're a, you know, child not wanting to be spanked. And these are all things that are affected.

The history you get to learn, it should be open to learning and the options should be there to understand. I'm sorry Nikki Haley, but there is a very definitive relation cause wise for slavery and the fricking civil war. And there should be no question when states literally wrote in the reason why that they were withdrawing from their agreement to be part of the United States was, we don't feel that it's fair for you to oppress us by not allowing us to oppress other people with slavery.

They literally explained it that way. This is not a trick question.

[Tommy Lavin]
No, slavery, that was a gimme.

[Lilin Lavin]
I mean, was a real fundamental reason why the civil war happened. And the way we address that is by teaching people the part slavery played, the reasons why people were fundamentally opposed to it. It's not a tradition versus no, the fact is no one has the right to own another human being.

And there should be no question about it. So we have to teach people why that's not normal, safe, okay, completely throws away their autonomy. So again, when we're teaching history, we have to be honest and we have to be reflective.

It's not all people of one specific category should now always feel sorry and want to make amends for that. We can't fix what other people did, but we can make active change to prevent it from happening again.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. That's the most important part.

[Lilin Lavin]
And we're all obligated to that, whether it's the way women have been treated historically, the way minorities have been treated historically, the way that we literally stole an entire, you know, country from people that were already living on the damn land, and still kind of ignore the fact that they've been relegated to areas that they weren't even necessarily from, and they lost identity and history and many things because of that. And yes, I'm talking about indigenous people.

The fact that there are still crimes happening that are very specific towards all of these groups. The fact that people still are angry that white and black people can be married or gay people can be married. The fact that that's still something that makes people mad enough that they want to do something to take away that right.

These are things we have to recognize don't benefit us as a society. We have to work to understand we're all going to do things we don't all necessarily like. This is where, again, the tenants come in.

We all have the right to be offended. It's fine to offend people. It's not fine to trample on their individual rights to take away their consent and to decide for them what they can and can't do with their body.

Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
So, okay.

[Lilin Lavin]
I'm going to take a breath now. I got a little worked up there.

[Tommy Lavin]
Just a little bit of work done on that one. That's fine. Yeah.

And all that came from, thank you for being a good community when the announcement for SatanCon being canceled came out. Yes.

[Lilin Lavin]
But now it's the fun part. Now that we know, and we know that it's because we'd all like to focus on working together, whatever that might look like for you, how do we do that? Let's start by reaching out to the folks that let us know and see what they want from us, what they need from us, what we can do to make that happen.

How can we help? Yeah. And if that means you go poke your congregation heads and you go, hey, I saw the thing and I'm not sure what that means.

And I'm not sure I really want to do a lot, but maybe, can you explain what that might look like? Hey, congregation heads, what do you think that might look like? Cause I'm thinking about it.

How do I make it where we're doing more in our community and then using that to kind of ripple effect into the greater executive ministry back at headquarters. So what are we doing to kind of overlap with one another to fundamentally help to bring us all together? Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
So again, and we're probably coming up on our hour here. Yes. If you've enjoyed this rant of many things.

You know, which actually I didn't, I was like, we might struggle to get an hour out of this one, because it is at the top level, thank you for being civil. Thank you for- Yes. Thank you to the community.

To the community for the way that you've reacted to what was probably disappointing news, and how can we help and how can we continue to unify TST with inside of the organization so that there is less infighting. And yes, even when I've talked about infighting, it isn't only, like I said, it's not only about COS versus TST and all that. There's infighting with inside of TST that is pointless bickering.

[Lilin Lavin]
Personally, the COS, TST, or whatever satanic organization that might be, but that tends to be the biggest two. There is no infighting. In my opinion, there's nothing to fight about.

You get to be COS satanist. We get to be TST satanist. We get to do our things.

I'm not engaging you in an argument. I'm happy that you're fundamentally pleased with what it is that you are out there doing and the way satanism works for you. I'm thrilled, actually.

And I just ask that you respect that I'm also happy with the things that I'm doing and the satanism that I have and the way that I express my satanism. And guess what? Within TST, other people have different ways that they do that.

And within satanism, there's more than just those two things. And I'm thrilled, again, just follow the two things. Respect consent and respect bodily autonomy.

Do not trample on people's rights. It's very, very simple. If you're doing those things, I literally couldn't care less what you're doing because it's your business.

It's not my business.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, exactly that. So with that, once again, I do want to offer a huge thank you to everyone and do see what we can do. Let's see what comes out from EM.

I don't even know if anything's coming out. Again, I haven't talked to anybody.

[Lilin Lavin]
And I'll even throw this out there. Lots of people have done it before. You have questions that you'd like to pass on, but you don't feel like you want to be the one to do it.

You want to figure out and have us talk about it another time. Send us your questions. Let us know what you'd like to find out.

I'll reach out to EM and I'll see if I can get a dialogue and I can share with you guys what it is that they're trying to convey with this and what it is that we're trying to accomplish. So you know what? I understand and respect for some people that type of conversation makes them uncomfortable.

Let us do it for you.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Yeah. I have no problem doing that.

People are always, I get asked a lot, well, what if you make somebody upset? And my answer is always the same. I am me.

And if that upsets somebody, I'm sorry for that.

[Lilin Lavin]
I expect that everyone's not always going to see eye to eye. That's just a given.

[Tommy Lavin]
We don't see eye to eye.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. We've had plenty of heated discussions between one another. But the beautiful thing is we talk about it and then even if we still don't agree, we can agree that it's fine for us to have those separate whatever.

We can agree to disagree on things.

[Tommy Lavin]
Sometimes that's the way the conversation ends. I see the way that you see it. I see it differently.

[Lilin Lavin]
And that's why we invite so many people on the show because we don't always appeal to everybody and there's things that we don't always convey. And so I love having other people share their perspectives because they're going to reach people in a way I just can't. So that's just the way it is.

But I appreciate you all making it to the end of this crazy podcast episode. And I look forward to being able to hang out with you guys again very soon.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, wherever you are, good night, good day, good morning, good evening, and