Ep.42: The Satanic Invocation - A Tool for Personal Sovereignty

# Satanists Nextdoor
# Ep.42: The Satanic Invocation - A Tool for Personal Sovereignty

[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. So tonight, we're going to talk a little bit about, one, what our congregation did this evening, which was we had our open office, which is something that we do every single month, which is an event where we allow Satanists, non-Satanists, anybody sort of interested in Satanism to kind of join a meeting, hang out with us, ask questions. And tonight's topic for our Thursday was the satanic invocation and kind of what that means to people, the different parts of it, how those different sections kind of touch them, make them feel what they get out of it.

And then we can kind of dive into some other congregation stuff, just kind of give an idea of what it's like, because there's Satanists out there that aren't in congregations.

[Lilin Lavin]
And just, you know, Yeah, I mean, one of the things with the satanic invocation is it kind of, it's great for a lot of different reasons. But in today's environment, it touches on a lot of things that as Satanists really matter a lot more, I think today than maybe they did before, especially like how divided and all the different disinformation and things out there, it kind of goes over a lot of that. And then you've got on top of it, some of the things that have been taken from people, the things that they keep trying to take from people.

So when you look in context of the environment we find ourself, it feels that much more relevant.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I will definitely say, even as we were discussing it tonight, and I hear the invocation all the time, but as we were discussing it at a academic level, sort of, I don't know if that would be the right, it was a Socratic conversation. So as we were discussing it like that, certain parts really did jump out and it was like, wow, okay, yeah, that is seems more relevant now than it did four years ago, you know?

[Lilin Lavin]
It feels more and more relevant, I think, all the time. And I especially feel one of the things that got me thinking about this topic was how our words matter so much all the time, but I think they matter that much more today. Because, again, we're so divided as people that we often forget our part in that division.

And it's sometimes the things that we say or even don't say. So it was really interesting to kind of go over it bit by bit, especially where people, a lot of people hadn't heard it before. A lot of people are new to Satanism.

And so they joined the open office to kind of get an idea of what does it mean to be a Satanist? What does it mean to be part of a congregation as a Satanist? Am I interested in being a Satanist?

So it's really nice to be able to discuss different things that matter in context of the Satanic temple and the kind of Satanism that a lot of us are involved in.

[Tommy Lavin]
Darrell Bock Yeah, it was cool because after you said the invocation...

[Lilin Lavin]
Oh, wait, was it Nigel? Miriam It was Minister Nigel. Darrell Bock Okay.

[Tommy Lavin]
So after Nigel read it, then we definitely got requests. Can you send that to me? Can you put that in here?

Because, like you said, there's people that are new to Satanism. We're just kind of checking it out for the first time. And they liked it and wanted to read it more and kind of digest it a bit more.

[Lilin Lavin]
Miriam Yeah. And so I'll go ahead and read it. But just to let everyone know, this invocation, I didn't write it.

It's not our invocation. This is a standard invocation that the Satanic temple uses. So if we are going to do an invocation, a lot of times state houses or different meetings for the government will have opening prayers.

And one of the things that we try to do to add inclusivity to those events is to ask if we can do an invocation at those events to be that pluralistic organization that we are to add that pluralism in there. So a lot of times if they do it, it's public, it's government, we request the opportunity and we do often get the option to do it. So anyway, that's a little history on that.

I didn't write it, but I love it. So the Satanic invocation. Let us stand now on bowed and on fettered by arcane doctrines born of fearful minds in darkened times.

Let us embrace the luciferian impulse to eat of the tree of knowledge and dissipate our blissful and comforting delusions of old. Let us demand that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not their fealty to arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations. Let us reason our solutions with agnosticism in all things, holding fast only to that which is demonstrably true.

Let us stand firm against any and all arbitrary authority that threatens the personal sovereignty of one or all. That which will not bend must break and that which can be destroyed by the truth should never be spared its demise. It is done.

Hail Satan.

[Tommy Lavin]
Darrell Bock Hail Satan. So yeah, that jumped into, you know, quite a bit of discussion about, you know, what each section kind of meant to some people. There were some that stood out more to others or had more meaning to other people.

You know, the last two sections, I relate more to, you know, standing against authority, you know, whether it's against me or others, because I am often online and I am often speaking up for other communities that are having their rights taken away from them. You know, and whether it's women, trans individuals, anybody in the LGBTQIA, you know, immigrants, the list goes on and on and on in our current, you know, political society and the things that they're they're looking to do, especially if they put in, you know, Project 2025 or some whacked out shit like that. So that one really speaks to me because it is something that I actively do multiple times a day, you know, and some people read it as, you know, something for them.

But then as we got into the discussion, it was or others, you know, kind of it was like, oh, yeah, that's right. It's not just talking about things against me. It's also talking about other people, too.

Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
And I think it's also important to remember that the things we like to associate to other people and stand against other people, it also applies to us. And that was one of the things that I was really wanting to share, is when you talk about that which will not bend must break and that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise. We have to think about the way that we interact, whether or not we're being rigid or inflexible, or if we're being open to hearing other people.

It's easy to stand on principle and push back on other people, but it's hard to hear their point of view and to listen to things they're trying to present, even when it's difficult to hear sometimes. Even if you don't agree, it's important to be aware of their people's perspective and to take that into account as you go about your day.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And that was the other part that stuck out for me as well. You know, and in with some of these sections was accountability.

You know, like you said, you have to also not be looking at other people and, oh, that person's unfair and that person's bad and that person did this, but also reflecting on yourself. Are you doing anything? You know, have you done something that you needed to be accountable for?

Because for me, throughout all my years within Satanism, accountability was the part of Satanism that, you know, I very much liked. I don't know if liked is the right word, but I'll just use like because you see other religions just sort of dismiss their responsibility. Oh, some some weird deity made me do it, or I have salvation or, you know, I have forever forgiveness so I can do whatever I want wrong and I have no accountability and to a Satanist because, well, we don't, you know, we don't believe there's there's a God or a devil and, you know, nobody's going to take our sins away.

And we are ultimately accountable in this life for the things that we do good or bad. You know, if I do something wrong to somebody, I am accountable for that. If I catch the winning game football in the touchdown, I did that.

You know, God didn't do that for me. I did that.

[Lilin Lavin]
I think I think some of the lack of accountability you see where people now sort of feel that it's more like a monopoly, get out of jail free card to just have the ability to pray. I think that's a much newer thing. And I think that's really limited to the more selfish aspects of individuals that are using religion as a personal crutch instead of as a building character building tool.

I definitely think there's people that are Christians out there who use this as a way to hone their desire to build themselves as better people. And they use it as a tool to to achieve that where the ability to move past things that they themselves find personally encumbering that don't allow them to progress in life. They use this as a way to to move past that and then they continue to build on that and build character and do things to improve their life.

So I think there's different groups out there.

[Tommy Lavin]
Absolutely. Absolutely. There are Christians that take accountability for their own actions.

But like you said, there's also the the radical, the extremes, the nationalist that that they don't they they take absolutely no responsibility. They use it as I often use that get out of jail free card. You know, it's like my this is my Jesus get out of jail free card.

You know, I can do whatever the hell I want. And because I believe in Jesus, nothing will ever happen to me. You know, according to them, Hitler's up in heaven, because if he, you know, if he said, oh, yes, I believe in God at the last minute.

That's it.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. And I think they use the name Jesus as almost a coupon and literally are redeeming it. Every time they do something wrong, they go and redeem it again.

Yeah. And instead of Jesus being a redeemer for them, they've just created it as a redeeming quality for themselves every time they do something wrong. It's like, oh, well, I'm just and I hate this.

I hear a lot. And I apologize. I'm only human as my humanity showing itself.

We're all in the same boat. We're all human. We're all just born sinners.

You know, God loves us. Anyways, it's just, you know, I'm not I'm not looking to just pick on one particular group. It just sometimes I get very agitated.

And that's, I think, one of the things when it starts out on bow and on fettered by arcane doctrines, born of fearful minds in darkened times. You know, it doesn't just apply to religion. There's a lot of different archaic beliefs that we hold on to and have brought forward.

A lot of it is attached to religion.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
But it's not limited to that. So, you know, would you say superstitions are part of that? Oh, absolutely.

Anything that I, I personally feel I'm not going to speak for every Satanist. I'm not speaking for, you know, Satanic temple when I say these things. But I personally feel when you look at arcane doctrines as anything that doesn't have an empirical, tangible thing that you can actually look at.

And that that goes back to the tenants. You know, I'm not going to distort science to fit what I believe I'm going to believe what science tells me. And I'm going to continue to update that understanding as science updates its understanding.

That's kind of the point of having that mindset is I'm open to new things. I'm open to new data. I'm happy to reevaluate my stance.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, science is forever changing. That's the beauty of self-correcting enterprise, you know. And when it comes to religion, if somehow certain religion was to be able to be proven by science, you know, no doubt and all that sort of stuff, then okay, I'll hear you out.

I got lots of fucking questions. Childhood cancer, all sorts of things got lots of questions for you, but I'll hear you out. But until that proof is there, then yeah, it's arcane.

[Lilin Lavin]
The problem I have with even if let's just say it was all somehow proven, it should not be infallible word of XYZ deity. The infallibility part is where I begin to have an issue because all things are fallible. Whether or not we like that truth, it's true.

I haven't met anything that's perfect.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I've never seen any, even in nature, nothing's perfect.

[Lilin Lavin]
No. So if we were to take that presumption that everything's made in the image of this all-knowing, all-powerful, all-ever-present deity, there's nothing I've ever seen that's perfect. So that would lead me to believe that it too is imperfect.

You know, I'm going off on a tangent, but if you look at those kind of things, that's where it begins to really, you know, for me, you know, embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat of the tree of knowledge. And this is one of those interpretations where people look at that moment where human beings decided to eat the apple. And at that moment, they knew all, which is when they realized they were naked, which, you know, would have, then you have the guilt and shame thing that was magically thrown in there somehow.

I don't understand why nudity was suddenly appalling.

[Tommy Lavin]
Oh my God.

[Lilin Lavin]
Oh my God, I'm naked.

[Tommy Lavin]
I have a penis and you don't. Oh no.

[Lilin Lavin]
They would have known that already. But the thing is, there's a lot of implied things with that story. But the knowledge part, where the whole tricking you into being free to actually learn and be aware and be self, you know, actualizing.

Self-choice.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, to have the right.

[Lilin Lavin]
The will. The ability to choose, to decide for yourself. Yeah.

So I love that part because it's very, it draws out a really important story. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
Now see, Christians will say, oh, we see by putting that in there, you prove you can't have Satanism without Christianity, you know, and it's like.

[Lilin Lavin]
Well, I can say if you look historically that there's other stories that have similar characters that are not dependent on Christianity. So perhaps it would have different names, but the stories have existed.

[Tommy Lavin]
The stories are the same. And I can point to the Bible and say, well, you took this part, this part, this part from this other religion. So you can't have Christianity without.

Sure. And then entered their religion in there. So, you know.

[Lilin Lavin]
I mean, but you could go back the story of Gilgamesh. There's so many things that like go back, but if you come down to it, it's the darkest, scary, the light makes me feel safe and warm. And, you know, one is less comfortable than the other.

And one is more sought than the other. And that's just.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And I'm afraid of death.

[Lilin Lavin]
And everyone's afraid of death.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Even even myself who knows in my own mind, what I believe is this is it. I get to experience these things. That's why I try to make the most of every day, even though I don't always accomplish that.

And sometimes I'm not a fun person to be around, just like everybody else. I do try to have that present in each day. She's not really.

We'll talk about that later.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yes, ma'am.

[Lilin Lavin]
But it's that reality is hard. It's a hard thing. And when you lose people, the idea of being able to reconnect is nice.

And I'm not trying to take that away from people.

[Tommy Lavin]
No, no, I understand that. And I have personally noticed a pattern. And again, there's nothing scientific backing this.

This is just something I've noticed through my own lifetime in my own experiences is people that have experienced either a near death experience or somehow come to grips with their mortality at a younger age seem to be more open to the fact that, wow, this could really be it. Then as people get older, if they've never really had that sort of experience, then all of a sudden mortality comes and slams them in the face, like a sledgehammer. They become scared and they they tend to lean towards running towards a religion.

And again, this is my own personal opinion. It's it's only based off of what I've seen multiple times in my life with different individuals that at one point were atheistic or something like that. And then as they aged and you could tell mortality was bothering them because they would speak about mortality, then they would move more and more and more into religion.

Whereas I've noticed those people that as a teenager or as a child or something like that, you know, they've they've come to grips with their mortality early on. So I think they were more able to deal with process that that fear and that reality that, like you said, this is all we get. And when it comes to the universe and nature in our time here, we're like that.

Yeah, we are.

[Lilin Lavin]
And it's an uncomfortable reality, whatever, you know, solace you take from just making the most out of your life. You know, we're still people that have good and bad days. And for some people, it's a lot of bad days for some people.

It's a lot of good days. And there's no rhyme or reason for any of that. We do get to make a lot of our own choice in life.

But, you know, there's some things that are out of our hands. A lot of things that I mean, we could walk across the street tomorrow, get hit by a car, you know, totally out of our hands. It's, it's true.

And that's where I think it goes into dissipating our blissful and comforting delusions of old. I think it is that things are comforting. Things like that.

And sticking with what you know, not deviating, these things can be comfortable. I personally don't feel like you can do a lot of growth when you just let yourself stay comfortable.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I agree. And that's true, whether you're in a professional world, and you know, an educational environment or a relationship in a relationship, or when you're in a religious environment, if you just stay comfortable all the time, you'll probably be content, you know, but you're not really going to grow. Yeah, you know, because growing, it's uncomfortable, it's uncomfortable, it's painful.

It's kind of like if you go to the grow muscle, it hurts, you know, leg day hurts. You know, the next day, you're, you know, yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
And then as we went on, some of the other conversations were interesting, demanding that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not their fealty to arbitrary social norms and luxury categorizations that holds to so many things. I think we have a tendency, I have a tendency as well, I'm not different or special in that way, to sometimes label things. I think we use that as a way to just make sense of the world.

We give something a label, we give it a space. I try to recognize that things are more fluid than that. And then even though you kind of try and understand what it is, it doesn't mean that's all it is.

But the concrete action part was important. So you know, we all meet people at different points in life, we go to work, people judge us on that first interview, but it's not always who we are in the long term. So their concrete actions to me means getting really to know somebody before making a final judgment.

I know in the discussion we had this evening, people had different perspectives on that. Some people said that they innately had very strong feelings about people right away, you were one of them. And that that can be okay, because the way you survive is by recognizing patterns and recognizing telltale signs that something may be dangerous, or maybe something to be cautious of.

And that's part of the survival instinct we all have, but it's learning how to kind of keep that in check and check in with reality. Is this something I noticed in someone I didn't like or somebody that hurt me or a bad situation and I'm associating it unjustly? Or is there more to it that I should be aware of?

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, and I'll be the first to admit, and I, you know, even on our call tonight, I admit, you know, I, I come up with a judgment about a person pretty quickly. And that's if I meet them in person, I mean, online, people are whoever they're going to be, and you don't know, but when I meet a person in public, I pretty quickly come up with my initial judgment about them. And it is really based off of telltale signs, things, you know, things that I noticed about them, you know, behaviors, all of that sort of stuff.

Now, the thing is, I am open to being wrong. You know, so I, that doesn't immediately mean I treat that person like an ass. You know, I, I will, you know, just kind of not necessarily interact at a certain level, or I'll keep my a bit of a distance or I'll keep my, my guard up a bit.

And if they prove me wrong, great. And then I'm, I'm fine to, you know, reevaluate that. But yeah, I, I definitely am one that very quickly will kind of, you know, this is what I think about this person.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. And you've definitely said, you know, we've had conversations where, you know, I might've misjudged that I, I, I had these feelings and I feel differently now. And I do appreciate that you're open to it.

And other times you're like, this was how I felt about them. That was absolutely confirmed. And I'm, you know, I'm glad I said what I said.

So, you know, it goes both ways, but the ability to, to judge yourself and have that same metric and decide you have an obligation to see how a person proves themselves to be is important. And I think the arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations is important today in this environment, because when you look at what's happening in the LGBTQIA plus community, where you have individuals that are being judged by the societal standard that certain biological things make a they can never deviate. That would definitely be one of those areas where I feel like this definitely applies where you can't tell someone who they are.

You can't say, because I believe this is what science tells me, and this is how I interpret it. This is who you have to be. That's not how that works.

Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
And there was, I mean, people say stupid shit all the time, but there was one particularly stupid comment. Somebody made like, it was either yesterday or today, where there were all the trans kids in the nineties, and it was like, they were there, dude. They just, one, there wasn't the internet, so information was really difficult to come by.

And two, a lot of times they were hiding because they were highly bullied at the time. Generation Z is a lot more accepting of people who they are, you know, really, truly who they are. They accept it.

We see it with our kids. They're, you know, it's a whole new level of acceptance, and that I wish would have been there when I was younger and, you know, had different friends.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. And I think at that point in time, again, trans individuals have existed for a long, like, as long as we've existed, I believe, they've been there. They just haven't always had some of the options they do at this point.

But they've always been here. They've always felt that they were who they are. And now they just have different ways to be able to fully realize that person that they've seen themselves as.

So, that's where I think these arbitrary social norms, the same social norms that say Satanists have to be bad, because we believe that to be true. And what was that dumb ass legislator that was like, it's a universal truth.

[Tommy Lavin]
It's a universal truth that Satanists are bad people.

[Lilin Lavin]
And it was like, yeah, or that all Satan is always bad. And nobody, you know, it was some dumb crap. And literally, there's Satan is sitting in front of you saying that they don't feel that way, which means it cannot be universally true.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Universal truth means it's universally known. That means like, nobody can test it.

[Lilin Lavin]
My dumb, but not so dumb, you know, standard is, you can say that people get shot in the head, and they're they're all going to die. Well, that's not always true. That's not a universal truth.

People get shot and they survive. But to say you can live without oxygen, that is obviously not true. You are required to have oxygen to live as a human being.

[Tommy Lavin]
That is a universal truth. I use that one a lot too. Nobody ever has a back for that.

[Lilin Lavin]
No, nobody because it was my favorite moment of clarity.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, it is one of those where people just shut up and they go away at that point. Because it is true. You know, people say you're shot in the head, you're gonna die.

Well, no, there are plenty, plenty of people who have been shot in the head and live, you know, deprive somebody of oxygen. They ain't living. That's a universal truth.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. So you know, at some point in the future, this may be a false conversation, because they'll have found a way for people to exist without oxygen.

[Tommy Lavin]
But today, we're going to grow gills. And you know, that's not using oxygen, just taking it from the water. We will evolve to I don't know, I don't know.

[Lilin Lavin]
At this rate, with the pollution, we'll be able to do a lot of things.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, we're getting we're, we're very quickly getting rid of the oxygen in our world. So it is possible at some point in the future, we evolve to live without oxygen.

[Lilin Lavin]
I laugh because it's sad, not because it's good. And then and then we go into the reason our solutions with agnosticism and all things holding fast only to that which is demonstrably true. So agnosticism, we're not all going to be agnostic and the things that we think feel see all of these things require us to take a look at what we're receiving from the outside and to it on the inside and do all have a sort of a bias at the output.

There's just different things we compute based on our life experience. The point of this is to say, we have to do our best to kind of keep that slate clean and keep it at neutral and to judge it as we know the truth to be that situation, judge it based on that what evidence we have, we judge it based on that. So regardless of our feelings, we try to put those to the side, keeping them on the back so that we kind of wait a little bit.

But at the end of the day, we're supposed to do it based on what we actually know the actual facts. So that one is important. Why?

Well, we live in a world with pseudoscience, misinformation, disinformation, AI and insanity, left and right. So pseudoscience.

[Tommy Lavin]
Oh, no, those are all those.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, that's that thing that tells you to distill your pee in the sun, and then to use it to swish your mouth for, you know, that one, the pseudoscience. Horse warmer for things on the earth is flat. Like you can take a light inside the body.

Inject disinfectant. All the bad, we're not going there. No, this is a positive moment.

We are having fun with our friends right now. Listeners, I apologize for that. But no, it's important because I think now more than ever, we are inundated with tons and tons of input.

We have access to the internet, which used to be much more resource of truth, I think than it is today, where it's full of hordes and hordes and hordes of disinformation and wikis and all sorts of interesting things that are opinions and theories without basis.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, I, I saw a study, they were talking about social media. And they were they were talking about it kind of on the effects of kids and stuff like that. But it also went into teenagers and adults.

And it was interesting because it included the internet before social media. So they had this sort of line of, you know, when it came to depression, emotional issues, and all of that sort of stuff. And the dates and the years, I should say the years that social media really started to come in, you know, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, it just skyrocketed.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
And it's because of all the disinformation that is just, I mean, you're just slammed everywhere. It is hard to know, sometimes what actually is the truth, people actually have to stop and take a little time and oh my gosh, do some research and make sure is that really true?

[Lilin Lavin]
It is not a feasible thing to do. But I try when I see something and I find it interesting, and I want to talk about it to find five agreeing sources. Yeah.

And it's not, it used to be three, I used to feel good if I could find three agreeing sources. And I do a really deep search into something. And if the first five things that come up are things that are known to be misinformation, disinformation, spreading things immediately, it goes down in validity.

And then I just keep looking. And if I just can't find some concrete things that let me know, yeah, this is something that's okay to talk about. It has a lot of valid sources, it's got a lot of foundational information.

And you still have to throw the disclaimer that I'm not entirely sure. However, I found this really interesting. Yeah.

But it's really important to just have that ability. And it's not feasible. It's not something people can go through and spend, you'd spend hours just trying to validate a few things.

So sometimes it's important to just say, you know, I'm not sure the validity of this. I was reading it, I found it really interesting. I'm still looking into it.

And then you can have a discussion. It's just important to have that for yourself and for others. I found this interesting.

However, I just, I don't know where it's coming from. I just thought it was cool. Yeah.

Bigfoot. No, not that. I mean, no, even with our kids, I think it's something that's so important.

I don't know everything. I think some people have a hard time. I'm not sure.

I don't know that this could be wrong. I could have this messed up. I say these things often because I don't know.

And I'm comfortable with that. But you know, some people are not able to do that. I think the more we could just say, I could be wrong.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And a lot of people do have a very hard time admitting that either they don't know something or that they're wrong. You know, it is, it's, it's weird because to me, and maybe it's because I worked as a consultant for so long.

And so I used to, even when I would train other consultants, I would say, it is okay to tell a client, I don't know, but you follow that up with, but I'll find you the answer. Because it's impossible as a consultant to know everything about everything. And if you try to do that, you're going to eventually spit out shit that's wrong.

And you're going to lead your client the wrong way. And then you're going to break that trust and not get it back. And people will trust you a whole lot more.

If you can be honest and just say, I don't know. Yeah, but I'll find out. Yeah, I'll do or I'll do my best to find out.

[Lilin Lavin]
In my capacity, working with people, I find it's just better to say, if I don't have the answer, I'm going to help find it. And you know, I'll get it to you. And if you need to call and talk about it, that's absolutely, we can do that.

But it's so much better. I think they just feel more at ease in a way. Because not only do they not know, and they had to ask you, but then you don't know.

So they feel even a little better about, well, gosh, I don't feel so bad about not knowing that now.

[Tommy Lavin]
I asked the expert and the expert didn't know. So maybe my question wasn't so stupid.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. No, I mean, you know, it's a good way to build confidence and trust. I just, you know, be honest about it.

Obviously, don't just lie and say, well, I don't know, thinking it's going to win brownie points. People aren't as dumb as you think. And they can definitely tell when people are being disingenuous.

Yes. But it's just good to be honest about things like that. And I think I'm not a perfect parent.

I don't know how, you know, all the answers to doing that. But I feel like our kids feel more comfortable having these conversations and feeling like they have things to contribute, because we don't shoot them down. We don't automatically tell them that they don't know as much because they're kids and we're adults.

And I've never found that to be useful. No. So I've never done it as a parent.

I've definitely pulled I've been around for a long time. So give me a little bit of a benefit on this one.

[Tommy Lavin]
But yeah, on certain things that like, I'm absolutely sure on, I'm like, you're gonna have to trust me on this one. You know, yeah, I have reasons. And here's my reasons.

But yeah, we've never treated our children like when you're just a child and you don't know and you know, we're, we're, we're the grownups. And so you have to listen to us. It's and I think it's, it's, at least our children, I can say are more critical thinkers.

They, they, they come to us sometimes with stuff that I'm like, holy shit. You know, and these are deep conversations. This isn't like, you know, what color Taylor Swift painted her fingernails or something.

There's, you know, there's some deep shit that they find.

[Lilin Lavin]
Craziest thing. And I don't think a lot of parents, maybe they do. I feel like a lot of people don't talk about it, at least is the silliest way to have really deep conversations with your kids is to watch a movie.

It sounds silly. But we've watched a few different ones. And one of my favorites was the ritual.

And you wouldn't think you can get a lot of deep things out of that because it's got these weird motor creature and all these crazy like cultists that are part of this whole mess. But we've had some really cool conversations with our youngest, who is very close to 16 at this point, which is crazy to say. Yes.

But you know, there was a lot of symbolism in that particular movie. And they had read through all this different stuff. And so this was our second time watching it.

The first time was all very new to all of us, but they were really intrigued by it. So they learned some different things. And at the end of it, we had this whole discussion that goes into, you know, what it is guilt and regret and what the symbology of the creature was, and what it represented in the movie.

And, you know, maybe for some people, that doesn't sound like a fun time. But I love that stuff. And so when they come to us, and we have these really good discussions, I really value them because I'm learning about the way they think, and the way they process feelings, and all the different cool stuff they've learned.

And it just lets me connect with them as a person. Plus, I learn a lot of fun stuff.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
So I enjoy that. It seems silly, but folks watch cool movies with your kids. It does not have to be that one.

But it's good to have discussions because a lot of movies touch on very real situations. So yeah, going on with this now, where we get into the standing firm against any and all arbitrary authority that threatens the personal sovereignty of one or all. We could go directly to the most obvious thing that relates to today where individuals who can become pregnant don't have a right to decide what happens to their own body.

That is a big breach of personal sovereignty. Yes, we can follow that up with the fact that you cannot intentionally allow people harm because they're from a foreign land and deny them the dignity that basic human beings should be giving to other human beings. I hate calling them animals.

Yeah, calling human beings animals is disgusting. I will say that there are certain crimes that people do that are animalistic that do not give me any kind of positive feelings toward them. But that does not mean they themselves are animals.

And you as a very large public figure should probably not be categorizing a group of people as animals, especially when you've said things like poisoning the blood of our country. So without going into a Hitler diatribe, I would just say there's certain people that should be very considerate about the way that they respect other people. Because I feel like the way that you treat people is definitely going to be the way that you end up being treated.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yes. So yeah, I think that one's pretty obvious. You know, you gave a couple examples there.

And there's about 100 more that we could probably pick right out of the air that are everyday things right now, you know, that are being threatened.

[Lilin Lavin]
And this is where, you know, you look at this all together, and where you have these obligations to learn, where you have these obligations to stand up against things that create fear, that spread fear, where you're standing up for people, regardless of what others might call them, or how they might see them. It's all these things that come together that really celebrate what makes us unique as human beings is that we have all these differences, we have all these uniquenesses, we have all these things that can be celebrated and strengths that we could use together. But it's those things that we allow to weigh us down that people put on us that people that are usually suffering with their own insecurities and struggles, often kind of lay those burdens on other people.

So yeah, there's a lot there's a lot there. And then it comes back to that which will not bend must break, and that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise. Now that could cover so many things.

And it should absolutely be applied to us as individuals. Because we can't grow and learn if we are inflexible, if we're rigid, we will break.

[Tommy Lavin]
And if we're lying to ourselves, we, you know, again, that's not going to help us grow, either.

[Lilin Lavin]
No, no, but it's, you know, and that not spared its demise, it could be, you know, metaphorical for things within ourselves that maybe shouldn't continue forward, you know, if you have a problem with lying, if you have a problem with being harmful, these are things that are okay to die within yourself. And to move past, we're never going to be 100% perfect, even to our best try. But you can really try to be the best person, best version of yourself, and you put a lot of intention into it.

And you can make a lot of change.

[Tommy Lavin]
I like that best version of yourself. You know, that's kind of what I always strive to be. And it is striving, because it takes work, it takes work.

[Lilin Lavin]
And you're always trying to become better. You know, just today, I was having a conversation with somebody, and they mentioned that it was hurtful when they were going through their cancer journey, that people would say, Oh, you look, you know, you look so pretty today, you know, why? And it wouldn't sound on the face of it, like that would be something negative, right?

But they said that it would remind them that they looked so different because of what they were going through. And they said it would have meant so much more for people to say, it's so nice to see you.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, you know, you look so pretty today. And I can especially see it for people going through cancer. You know, our daughter dealt with cancer.

And so some of the psychological aspects, you might think, well, does that mean I look ugly other days?

[Lilin Lavin]
Is that yeah, or, you know, the very, very physical changes that happen to people, while they going through those struggles, and it doesn't just have to be cancer. But that's one that is really present, you think you're doing something kind, and it is kind, I don't think that they were saying, don't ever say something like that to me.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
But at those moments, they would have just been happy to hear, it's just good to see you. Because it doesn't have some of the negative connotations. And yeah, people are responsible for their feelings and the way they choose to react to things.

But it is nice to hear from people that this is something that mattered to them in that moment. And as someone that wants to be the best version of themselves, learning these perspectives allows me to be more aware of possible things, because you never know what someone's quietly going through. And you know, the way that you speak to people, the things that you say, whether or not you realize it, if you're not being cautious with your words and your thoughts, and the way that you share them, you could be saying something inadvertently negative to someone or harmful to someone.

So you'll never be 100% perfect in the way that you express things.

[Tommy Lavin]
But yeah, and and sometimes it is, it is innocent enough. You know, you're trying to say something innocent. And if you know, you don't know where that person's at, and if they don't share it with you, or something like that, you don't necessarily always know.

But you know, if they do, and then you don't change, then that's an issue more with you than at that point, because that person has expressed the discomfort that they had.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, I just liked it, because I thought it was a really, it was nice to hear it. But then it lets me think, you know, as I'm going about my day, because one of the things I like to do is to be genuine. If someone has put effort into something, like, I see they're wearing really nice, you know, nail polish, or they've got really nice jewelry, or they've obviously put a lot of work into their hair, I like to try and say, you know, hey, that looks really nice.

I don't like to make it up. If it's not there, it's not there. I'm not going to try and look for something to say nice things.

But if you obviously are trying to do it, maybe you've had a lot going on, and you you want to feel pretty, and it feels really good when someone says something to you. Or, you know, it just feels good, even if you're in a great place in your life, to hear a good compliment. So I like to do that, where there's an opportunity.

And sometimes you don't think about what other people might be going through. So it's nice to kind of have that in the mind, where the way you say things can change, you know, how a person's feeling, whether or not they tell you. So it was just cool.

So that's part of that, just choosing with intention and being the best version we can be. But yeah, so I thought it was a cool way to dive into the invocation. And I liked being able to have this conversation with people that aren't necessarily very involved in Satanism, or learning about Satanism, or just coming to Curious Place to have a conversation.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And again, I mean, this is something that our congregation does once a month. So people regularly know that these are going on.

And we have some regulars that pop on. And then we have people that it's their first time, they've never really talked to a Satanist before. And they're, they're curious.

And sometimes we get lots of questions. And sometimes we're able to take something like we did tonight and dive into it a little bit deeper. And, you know, and every congregation does different things.

You know, a lot of people, not every Satanist is part of a congregation, not every Satanist has the opportunity to be part of a congregation.

[Lilin Lavin]
Not every Satanist is part of the Satanic Temple. So, you know, they're not part of that group. That doesn't mean that, you know, if you're curious, you shouldn't come hang out.

A lot of the congregations are really happy just to have allies. Yep. Even if you don't share the same exact way of believing certain things or experiencing your religious beliefs does not mean you're not welcome.

Sometimes it just means that you wouldn't be a good fit as a permanent member, right?

[Tommy Lavin]
Which is, you know, to be quite honest, congregations don't really have this big secret handshake where, you know, all of a sudden you enter the magic room where, you know, wait, wait, wait, we're not supposed to do that. Oh, no. So that's kept a secret.

Yeah, it's more voting and stuff like that. But we do get to do cool things. Like last night, we got invited to a sort of what was it?

[Lilin Lavin]
It was a movie premiere. It was a pre-release movie premiere.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, a secret movie.

[Lilin Lavin]
It wasn't secret.

[Tommy Lavin]
It was special.

[Lilin Lavin]
It was a pre-screening for the first Omen, which was actually pretty cool. If you're a fan of the Omen, I think you would enjoy it. It was really smartly done.

They stuck with a time period, which I find always harder to do when you can actually capture the kind of color, the way that people would look, the environment. It was really well done to that.

[Tommy Lavin]
They're idiosyncrasies. Yes. You know, and I can say this now because the movie will be released by the time this goes out.

But the one thing that was really cool that I thought I got out that I got out of it anyways, was the thing that the church was afraid of the most.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. So when the main, one of the main priests that you learn about starts at the beginning of the movie, they were looking to kind of protect the church because all this stuff they ended up getting communicated because they were digging to find out what was going on. And they said, you know, there's all these things happening and it's all this evil and secularism.

Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
You know, that was evil. The church was the most afraid of. And if you look at today, what are Christian nationalists?

What are the church? What are the extremists and the radicals the most afraid of? Secularism.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. You know, it's, it was, it was really well done in the way that I think they kind of give you some food for thought. I thought that a lot of the things they touched on were, were, were well done.

They didn't rely a lot on just the, the goofy jump scares. A lot of things will do bad enough.

[Tommy Lavin]
What I would call jump scares to, to some people, you know, I, I don't really jump scared, but I understand when a jump scare happens and maybe they had just enough of them to, to make it a horror movie. They didn't depend on jump scares and they didn't depend on gore. Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
I won't say there's gratuitous gore. I will say if you're a person that gets squeamish on, on body, um, childbirth that, or, you know, injury or a car accident related stuff, uh, you might find it a bit gruesome to that degree, but I would not say it was a bloody gore flick.

[Tommy Lavin]
It wasn't, it wasn't like real gory, but they did a really good job of tying this movie together with the original Omen.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. Cause it kind of leaves off where that picks up. So, uh, you get a lot of that, that prequel pre-story.

[Tommy Lavin]
This is like the backstory of how that, that first movie, the Omen came about. And like you said, I think they set the time period perfect that, you know, and so it was, it was cool. You know, we, we got the invite specifically because we were TST in Houston and they reached out to the, you as one of the congregation heads to say, Hey, we're having this special pre-screening would Satanic temple like to show up.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. We were, we were kind of joking because there's quite a few people that were invited. Um, you know, it was a decent turnout and I'm thinking, well, where did they find these other folks?

Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
So they, they find like the list of, you know, the culty people, culty people in, in Houston area, you know, I don't know.

[Lilin Lavin]
It was, but it was cool. It was a really nice, uh, turnout. I thought everyone was really respectful and it was a fun first viewing of this movie.

[Tommy Lavin]
So, yeah, yeah. It was, it was really cool just to be able to do that. And every once in a while as congregation, you get invited to things like that.

You know, you also get emails about other things going on, you know, this school is doing, you know, the, the things that the Satanic temple stands for. Yeah. You get emails about that.

Then you also get a whole lot of, um, you know, odd things, odd things, nasty things in the email and stuff like that too.

[Lilin Lavin]
I think the hardest thing as a congregation head, because you feel these emails is when people want help for things that you just can't do anything about. I know we definitely have gotten our share of parents or women that wanted abortion access, things like that, that you just can't make happen as much as you wish you could, especially when they're not members. There's not as many things when it comes to the school.

I've had parents reach out and say, the school is doing this thing to my kids, or they're doing these really questionable things. And I can point them to other resources, but we can't unfortunately just show up and just demand things on behalf of parents. I mean, I would, I absolutely would if I had the ability to, but you have to pick your battles carefully.

And again, our role in these situations is to only come in if there are religious things that are happening that aren't supposed to be. So in one instance, there was a parent who actually had video of the school reading the Bible during school hours on the loudspeaker. And even then, we could point them to resources, but we can't just show up and say, well, if you're going to do that, because honestly, I would rather than not be doing any of that.

It's just not the place, however they are. And you give them the resources you have, and you hope that the parents can go to the administrators and say, I'd like to exert my religious right, and I'm asking you to please not do these things. And then if they don't listen, you send them to the Freedom from Religion Foundation, or the American for Civil Liberties, or the Separation of Church and State Group, because there's a few really good groups.

If I could take on every single battle and have an unlimited amount of money, I would absolutely deal with every single one of these. Yeah, it would be awesome.

[Tommy Lavin]
But we haven't won the Powerball yet. So you know, hey, if we win the Powerball, Satan's going to have so much work being done for him. So you know, hey, there's a little hint out there.

If only that's how it worked. If only how it worked, you know, but you know, maybe I'll hit the Powerball after this goes out. And then people will be like, hmm, did he sell his soul over the podcast and Satan accepted it?

Maybe. You know, those complained delusions that we were talking about earlier. So yeah, I mean, other than that, like I said, you know, congregations, at least many of the congregations I know, you don't have to be a member to hang out with them.

A lot of them like allies. But every congregation is kind of different. And again, you know, it sort of depends on where you live is if there's congregations within a, you know, reasonable distance from you.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, I know Texas right now has at least three active congregations. Three, is it four? Or did it go down to three?

I think there's technically four, but one of them kind of like merged.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, they sort of merged together. And sometimes that happens too. I see it in some other states where, you know, they're close together.

So they merge.

[Lilin Lavin]
Or they'll like do things between the two. So it's really like a joint thing. And really cool about Texas is we know a lot of the different congregation people.

We don't know all of them, but we know quite a few. And so we'll try and do some things here and there where we kind of get to intermingle when we share conversations. And, you know, it's really nice to have that network.

And then outside of that, we have usually networked with other congregations. So we meet people and they're like, I'm looking for a place to go. And so you kind of email and say, hey, someone's looking for something and then let them handle it.

But in Satanism, again, it's a unique journey. And that's reflected in our congregation structure, because the congregations are a reflection of those unique journeys of the congregation heads that are building that community. So it's nice to be able to go around and get that feel of just the uniqueness of each of those groups and the things that they bring, which are always, at least in my experience, they've been really cool.

So they're very diverse, just like the satanic beliefs. And it's reflective of that.

[Tommy Lavin]
And I will say the congregations do give, you know, a lot of people, a lot of people join churches, not necessarily because they believe in God or whatnot, but they want a community. You know, they want somebody. And, you know, Satanism is a lot of other people, you know, we're sort of the weirdos, the stranger, you know.

And sometimes it's nice just to have a community of other oddballs, weirdos, strangers, you know, that, you know.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, that can celebrate each other's differences.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
And I've definitely found that to be true. It's definitely something I feel TST in particular does really well, as they built a really nice community-based platform where people can kind of get together and just do their own thing and build communities that I think really stand out and are very inviting to just lots of people. I'd love to see a lot more diversity.

I know it's harder when you have groups that are so spread out. And I think there's tons of stigma around what it is to be a Satanist. But, you know, we have room for everybody and everybody is absolutely welcome.

So, you know, if that's something you're curious about, don't be afraid to go out and, you know, find your local congregation and engage with them and see what you think of those people. Because like I said, they're all different. So maybe you don't necessarily jive with everyone.

But, you know, if you have the opportunity, it's worth at least checking it out.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And we're all adults. If you don't get along with one or two people in the congregation, that's fine.

It's the same way as if you go to work, you're not necessarily going to get along with every single person there.

[Lilin Lavin]
I just hope it's not like work.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Or if you go to a church, you're not going to get along with every single person there too. You just, you know, if you don't get along with certain people, you just don't interact.

[Lilin Lavin]
Or maybe it's not for you. So don't stop looking just because it turned out that wasn't your thing. You know, there's lots of really cool, at this point, secular groups.

There's really cool community groups. There's usually a group for just about anything under the sun. You like going out to eat?

There's a group for that. You like to paint? There's a group for that.

So, I mean, I definitely recommend finding a community because I think it's a healthy way to connect with others and to enjoy, you know, yourself at the same time. And if you have curiosities, do not hold back. Life is not guaranteed to be unlimited.

So if you want to learn how to paint, get out there and learn how to paint. You know, find something that's interesting to you. And I bet you're going to find some cool people to share that experience with.

Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, I think that was, yeah, I think that was really good. I mean, we kind of covered the entire invocation there. And well, the bottom is hell, Satan, that kind of self-explanatory.

So, yeah, I just, you know, it was such a good conversation that we had earlier tonight. It was like, you know what? We should carry that over into the podcast and kind of spread that conversation to other people.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, I definitely love just hearing how people interpret things. And I learn a lot, not about just the other people, which is fun, but I learn about how they perceive it. And it grows my understanding of things, too.

So I really, I love that. I encourage you to get out there and have meaningful conversations with people. The world is so full of just noise right now and people looking for things to kind of pick on and things that are different and things to be upset about.

Let's just try and find ways to connect and things that we are connecting on and things we share similar, because I bet if we sat down, most of us would have a lot more in common than we don't.

[Tommy Lavin]
Absolutely. I think that is a perfect place to end this. So with that, good night, good morning, good afternoon, wherever the hell you are in the world and Hail Satan!