UncleDad Selects: EP 37 Remastered. Talk w/ The Church of Satan

0:01 All right, Mike, we are here with our guest, hopefully this is fair to say, but the unholy Magister Bill M. Bill, hello. Hello. Welcome to the show. We are very excited to have you on. You are definitely one of our most provocative guests, I would say, but I'm very excited to talk to you about this. And I think I'm going to start off with a very general statement because I feel like this is the best way to kind of start the show with this is, what is Satanism? So when we're talking about Satanism, it is not the same as Satan worship. It's Satanism. And I would say it's embracing the life enriching things which have traditionally been given the devil's name. So pride, lust, earthly success, rational self-interest, atheism, humor, science, nonconformity, being selective about whom we love.

0:50 You know, spiritual religions have traditionally condemned these things as being shameful sins, but we take them as empowering ideals. And we also recognize the psychological power and the fun of symbolism and aesthetics, so we pick Satan as mythology's most fitting mascot for what we're about. What's fascinating about that is, I recently watched that documentary that I'm sure you know, the Hail Satan documentary. Are you familiar with that? Yeah, I am. Yeah. Do you have opinions about that? Oh, I certainly do. Well, I actually do want to hear your opinions on that. But before I do that, one of the comments that they said in there was the reason why we call it Satanism, because we don't have anything else to call it. Would you agree with that statement?

1:31 Yeah, the people who made that are pretty clueless, that whole organization who made that group. It was really just a 90-minute commercial for their thing. Interesting. So tell me about that, because I am curious to talk to you about that, because so I had recently watched that and I had thought, is this an accurate representation? Because with any documentation or any documentary, right, it's always like, how accurate is this to what's really going on, whether it's politics or saving the fish, whatever it is, right? And so since this is your realm, can you tell us how accurate really is that documentary? Not really at all. I mean, it's made by this political stunt group that calls themselves the Satanic Temple. I actually know a guy who calls himself Lucian Greaves. His name's Doug Mesner.

2:12 He used to be a member of the Church of Satan, actually. And I kind of consider them, they're like the Westboro Baptist Church with horns, really. It's like they're into publicity stunts rather than, you know, presenting an actual religion. Initially, they hired actors claiming to be Satan worshipers and their own high priest, Brian Werner, quit after realizing that they really have nothing to do with satanism you know they are social justice warriors who wear pentagrams really what they are and it's fine if if i mean that's fine if that's what you feel you know you have a cause to do but don't call it satanism they use satan satanism as a costume pretty much and journalists you know just assume okay anybody who says they a satanist must be and interesting i mean they're really just a political stunt group they show up where christians are and just try to just mimic what they're doing in satanic garb that's but i haven't seen any signs of them being an actual religion they certainly don't represent satanism.

3:17 That's that's fascinating because i would feel like you know i would say 90 of the audience who watches that documentary right like not going into knowing what satanism is it's like they're going to think, oh, that's what it is, right? Like, this is what it is. And so that's a very good insight on that. I think, what would you say is the proper way Satanism would be treated? And what's the difference between the two? Well, I mean, again, they're a political group, and that's really all they are, that uses the label of Satanism, the, you know, I guess, the fear of that to try to do stunts against Christians, and that's it. I've seen no sign that they have an actual religion to present.

3:57 Gotcha. They have this list. Yeah, I mean, they made up this list called the seven tenets, which they did only because they were protesting a Ten Commandments statue. And so, okay, we want to make Christians look like the bad guys. Let's come up with a list of seven things that seem more agreeable and have more mass appeal than the Ten Commandments. Well, not really hard to do. Right, right. But that's not Satanism. Satanism, you know, we're adversarial. That's what the word Satan means means adversary in the original Hebrew word and, You're trying to do things for mass appeal in the name of Satan. It just makes zero sense to me. What is an average? What does an average? What is it called again? I'm sorry. Like a service? Thank you, guys.

4:39 Sermon. There you go. It's like, oh, my uncle dad is not on his point right now. Well, Satanism is not actually a congregational religion. We don't have weekly services. We do have rituals, and any individual Satanist can pick up the Satanic Bible, and there's a basic ritual that's there and there are other things we can do we do occasionally get together for group rituals but it's not necessary at all so in satanism you would do a ritual if you feel the need for it if there's an emotional need for it not something you you go to every week out of you know out of habit we don't drag ourselves to you know to the pew once a week right things like that you know because when you say like if there's an emotional need is that something like this depending on the situation so let's say like i'm going through the hardest time at work then i I would, that's how I would go about.

5:26 Yeah. You could certainly utilize some of the rituals we have because we realize ritual is a man-made thing, ceremony and symbolism and all that. They're man-made things, but they're very powerful psychological tools. And we kind of recognize their strengths psychologically. So we think if you can put yourself in that situation where you can have an emotional release, it can be very cathartic and help you focus on whatever personal goals you have. Have so it's it's a tool you know that we have in our toolkit that's that's it's pretty fascinating i think so what i what i'm very very curious about too about learning about the satanism i would say religion right i would say satanism yeah i call it a religion okay how how would you like how does one like i guess become a part of the pack if you will like do you just go do you just do i just, say hey bill i want to become a member of the the church how does that work well you don't have to do join the Church of Satan to be a Satanist.

6:20 All we say is a requirement for Satanism is you read the Satanic Bible. So you read what Satanism is about and you decide, okay, is this something that fits me? Does it something that resonates with me? Because there's a certain personality type and other ideals that go in with that. We're one of the few religions that says not everybody can join. If anything, we get some people, well, we get people all the time who are like, know oh i really really want to be a satanist and it's kind of like we see from their beliefs and their actions it's like yeah this this thing isn't really for you maybe you should try something else bill let me ask a question what what makes the the church of satan choose satan because i think you know when people don't know much about it they hear satan they think of the little the guy with the devil horns or whatever and he's a bad guy what obviously that's not the this the the same message that once I started looking at your website and such, but what makes the church of Satan choose Satan as like, it's.

7:18 Symbol, I guess. Well, like I said, Satan means the adversary, and we are adversarial in all of the general things spiritual religions are against, and we're for the carnal, not the spiritual. And when Satanism was formed, it was formed, you know, in 1960s America when it was first codified. And here in Western culture, the most famous adversarial character from mythology is Satan. Now, had the principles of Satan been founded in another time and another place, another culture, another century, maybe it would have ended up having a different name. But Satan is the most, I think, apt character and the most stimulating character for that.

7:58 So you need a mascot that drives some emotion. Yeah, and I also noticed there's a lot really tied to nature, or like kind of you worship, not worship, but you celebrate the equinox of each time of year, and it seems like a lot more connection to the earth and nature than it is anything else, I guess, right? Is that fair to say? Well, yeah, because we do explicitly say in Satanism that humans are animals, and that seems to be one of the most fundamental things that goes directly against all the spiritual religions trying to say that, no, you're more than an animal and that you. There's something virtuous about being less animal-like and we're, we're a Satanist.

8:40 We take, you know, the opposite approach saying, no, you have a, you know, you have a carnal drive and carnal desires and some of those things should be met and not bottled up. And with that, with the equinox and those sorts of things, yeah, we do acknowledge, you know, those points of the year, cause we are here in nature, here on the earth. And I think, you know, the, the shifting of the seasons and those holidays is more significant than, say, acknowledging the birth of a mythical character. Right. I'm curious too, how does the system work? I mean, I don't really understand, because I guess a standard, not a standard religion, but any religion, there's always a hierarchy, right? How does the hierarchy work in the Church of Satan?

9:22 So the hierarchy that we have in the Church of Satan is mostly based on what's a word I'm looking for, kind of an award ship. It's things that you've been granted and titled as a magister. I don't lead, you know, again, I don't lead congregations, you know, things in weekly services. I have conducted group rituals. I have conducted satanic weddings and funerals and the like. But Satanism doesn't you have a regular pastor like that. That so we give out titles based off of you know when we see individuals who are excelling are they applying satanism in their lives do they have a great grasp of the topic can they come on to shows like this and explain it well and you know and we recognize that we give award positions and titles based off of that who awards them though is like who's the who's like what would you call the top person then because there has to be a top person right yeah so right now magus gilmore is a a high priest okay so he'd be a high priest yeah yeah there'll be high priest we have a high priestess as well we don't when it comes to gender we don't have any rules about you know saying that only men can be priests or any kind of nonsense like that it's you know equal across there oh that's all yeah we we do have a high priest peter h gilmore who because you do need as an organization that you know have have a figurehead have a head that can be a face one you know, when it comes time to that and be representative and so on.

10:48 When did the, I am very curious here, what's the, when did the journey of Satanism start for you, if I may ask? So for me, I've always been interested in religion. I've always been fascinated by that, always been fascinated by rituals and symbols and ceremony and so on. And I was raised in a Catholic household in a very Jewish neighborhood and I had a friend who was Hindu. So I always knew about the existence of other religions and I had. Done New Age dabbling and occult dabbling and looked into Far Eastern stuff and couldn't really find something that fit me. And it wasn't until years later, in like my early 20s, I had discovered the Satanic Bible.

11:30 I had always heard about Satanism because I grew up in the 1980s during the Satanic Panic Hysteria, as it's now called, when people really believed there were roving bands of devil worshipers hiding in every town and abducting babies. And if you listen to heavy metal, especially backwards, well, that would turn you into a devil worshiper and so on. But it was, you know, years after that. And in my 20s, I picked up and read the Satanic Bible, and it just really completely resonated with me. And not everybody will have that experience with that book, and other people resonate to other religions. And, you know, we say that's fine. But that was where it really, you know, hit me. And then it was about a year after that, I decided to go join the Church of Satan.

12:10 And then as I was doing more with Satanism, applied for active membership and sort of went from there. Yeah, it's fascinating to see that because it's like with any religion, right, or really any sort of movement, it's like when it resonates with you, it just resonates with you, right? And it hits you in a way. And I find it fascinating when we connect to things like that because it's like, well, why do we connect to things like that? And I don't mean that negatively. It's just such an interesting thought, right? It's like you're looking for something, and then one day it hits your lap, and you're like, wow, this is what I needed. And Satanism may be the call for you, others, maybe not for me, but I think it's great to talk about it because it's such a – I feel like everybody looks – here's that word, Satan, and they just fear for themselves.

12:59 Which just shows it's – I guess we chose it for good reasons. It still works. It still works in the sense of fear, but how do you do good with a fearful title? How does that work? What do you think? Well, yeah, it's an interesting question. Doing good. I mean, it depends on what we mean by doing good. I mean, everybody thinks they're doing good. Even, you know, jihadists who run planes into buildings think they're doing all this work. You're right. So, yeah, there is some subjectivity to that. I mean, I do believe as a Satanist, even as, you know, I'm animal and within that comes there is a degree of personal responsibility because I realize my actions have consequences. And I also realize there is, you know, I believe there is no God looking out for me.

13:45 It is up to me to take the responsibility. I'm ultimately responsible for what happens in my life. So I have to be courteous as a citizen as well. And, you know, for everybody. Because it's in my best rational self-interest, you know. Sure, sure. If I walk around, you know, being a bastard to people, somebody is eventually going to be bad to me. Right. It's only natural. But now, but I think with, I think the common conception is that you guys are like. Like, just, I don't want to say evil, but I think people would think that. Right. And it's like, well, to my understanding, you guys do a lot of help for like different organizations too, correct? Well, no, that's completely up to the individual Satanist. It's up to the individual Satanist. If he or she wants to do philanthropy or to get into some kind of political or social cause, that's fine within Satanism.

14:34 It's ultimately up to the individual because we are are shamelessly selfish individuals. We say that in Satanism, we operate on rational self-interest. If I want to, if a Satanist wants to go donate, say to some charity or organization, it's ultimately because of self-interest. It's because, you know, this is, I feel happier when I'm giving, or I'd like to see the world in a certain state. And I think this other charity or this other group can and go help, you know, fulfill that cause. But we are not under any obligation to really do things for humanity. You know, it's the way I see it. It's also up to the individual to go decide that. So how does the Church of Satan, I take it you guys don't recruit people, but how do you go about getting more people part of the church to be part of the Satanism?

15:25 We just put, you know, our literature and everything else out there and people eventually find it. Where would I find literature? Where would it be? You can go to churchofsatan.com. We have lots of free essays on there. The Satanic Bible, other books by Anton LaVey as well as Peter H. Gilmore have been available in bookstores. You can go into Barnes & Noble, find the Satanic Bible. So a lot of it has come through people stumbling across it. Some people initially. I know some Satanists who got into it first as a joke, like they wanted to go enrage Christians and they've got some, you know, satanic looking stuff. And then they stopped and like read it and say, Hey, wait a minute.

16:06 Like, I actually agree with a lot of this stuff here. Let me actually look more into this beyond the shock value and see what's here. Yeah. So there's not like, you know, I forget what religion it is. Maybe it's Jehovah witness, the people that will stand in front of a storefront with little pamphlets and handing them out to people or knocking on doors. No, no, no, we don't, we don't, no, no, we don't proselytize and we don't recruit. I think first and foremost, because it's antithetical to statenism because this is a religion that's not for everybody and to try to get somebody into it when they're not really into it it's not helpful for them certainly not helpful for us. You know, if anything, we're telling more people, it's like, no, go away. You don't know what you're talking about when people approach us for the wrong reasons and without an understanding.

16:50 I want to ask, can you kind of explain to us how a ritual works? Sure. Before I get into it, I just want to quickly say, and this is not a dig at you guys, but we get asked about rituals so often, and I just find it kind of amusing because we spend so little of our time really doing it. It's an important part of the end of the religion. I think it's an important part of religion in general and what separates religion from just philosophy that you have, ceremony and symbolism and so on. Sure. But a standard satanic ritual, there's one given in the satanic Bible and that's kind of like a blueprint you can take embellish with your own work. So you have a setting, I would say, where you suspend disbelief.

17:31 And that is you go into a setting where it's a psychological setting, sort of how like if you were really enjoying a book or a movie, you kind of suspend disbelief. You know, it's fictional. But to get really into it, you have to kind of immerse yourself emotionally a bit in that world. And I think you can do the same thing within the context of a ritual chamber by having the trappings, having candles and lightings, something to set the ambience with music. Is it almost like creating a fantasy almost? Yeah, it is. In fact, if you look at the back of the Satanic Bible, like the book classification the publishers gave is fantasy. Interesting. Yeah. Which I thought at first, I'm like, oh, well, that's silly. That's ridiculous.

18:12 But I thought about it more. I was like, no, actually, you know, that is kind of true. True. Not fiction, but fantasy that we know what we're doing here and the rituals is fantasy. It's an intentional fiction you make for yourself. And then when it's done, you kind of get all that off your chest and go back to the real world. The reason why i brought up the ritual is because um i play a lot of dungeons and dragons and i met a lot of people in that circle and i've had multiple people tell me oh yeah i partake in church of satan type rituals but no one could ever give me a description of what was happening so i was always just kind of confused by that because that's like well what what is it but i think the clarity is just it is like a fantasy type setting and to what you're saying it makes sense to me but i just i feel like it is kind of hard to explain even though it doesn't happen Do you disagree with that?

19:02 No, it is inherently kind of hard to explain because it is something that we define as a very subjective and emotional thing. Um experience and to try to put that into practical words sometimes is you know it's tough and trying trying to yeah trying to explain it oh i'm sure it's almost like you know again like any other religion right like where they like you know i'm sure like with you know judaism right like the idea of some people take passover very very emotional and very serious like right so it's probably that same conviction right i think i don't know i i just think it's fascinating to know that as a human as a race we have the ability to believe in anything and i think it's amazing that we all have this this this type of freedom to do so and and it's even with the church of satan it is almost like the it's the rock and roll of of of a religion almost right like i don't know if you would agree with that but yeah it's like you know that very i i don't know i i just find it i find it fascinating to to know that it isn't just a a statement it is something much more, you know, it's such a much more in-depth than that.

20:08 And I think the documentary that, and I apologize if I keep bringing it up, but I mean, that's literally what was a huge impact into how I discovered Satanism was through the documentary. And well, some people ironically find it through like Christian propaganda too. Well, you know, they will find anti-Satanism stuff and ironically find their way to Satanism through that. Which is actually, I wanted to bring that up next is, you know, through the different like religions, how does that, you know, help you guys this i don't say membership numbers but like help people get into satanism like is that like a big key to it as well like other religions talking negatively about you guys you know again people will find it on their own and they do find it on their own we're not trying to go for sure sure a certain number of members we're always going to be a minority satanists always will be which is something i i see a lot of other people don't really understand when they think well we have to make satanism you know we we have to.

21:02 To be socially acceptable and fully integrated in society. It's like, no, no, it's Satanism. About how many members? I do not know the exact membership count of the Church of Satan. And we have always not revealed that a while ago. Our founder made the choice years ago. Anton LaVey had made the choice to not reveal the membership numbers. His reasoning was if it was something that seemed too large to people, people might consider us a threat and give us a home desk, give us a hard time. Or if the numbers seem too low, people might not take us seriously. So I don't know what the membership number is. Do people consider like, I don't want to say a threat because I feel like it's too, it's too brutal, but do you feel that a lot of people see you guys as just a pure malicious group rather than being people that practice like a safe, you know, type religion?

21:54 Yeah, it's funny. I mean, the stereotypes and the perceptions go completely over the spectrum, Like on the one hand, you have the people who assume, oh, you know, you're just a bunch of teenagers who listen to heavy metal and listen and, you know, live in your parents' basement. And then on the other hand, there's the idea of us being like the Illuminati and that we control the world banks, you know, everything like that. You know, I'm just amused that those, those are like two of the exact opposites, but like, we still get those, both those stereotypes. It's. Bizarre. You know, people have their different perceptions. And I guess a lot of that is because a lot of people simply don't and probably, you know, might not ever run into an open Satanist.

22:40 And if they run into what they think is Satanism, they only know about it through maybe a horror movie or through Christian propaganda. Or they knew that one metalhead in middle school who carved pentagrams on the desk and called himself a Satanist and stopped doing it once he went to high school and got a girlfriend. You know, so people have the different perceptions based on those sorts of things. But I mean, if we really cared about public approval, we wouldn't call ourselves Satanists. But I do think it's good to correct misinformation when I say it. Yeah, I was looking at the website and it says, you know, the church of Satan, it's, you're actually atheist. So you're not believing in like any higher being as a God.

23:21 But when I hear church of Satan, I mean, you know, I would think, oh, those guys, they worship the devil. And that means then the devil, according to, you know, Christian beliefs in the Bible is this bad thing. And he's in the Bible as a bad guy. So theoretically, you guys would be bad. But I'm looking on your website and a lot of the things that I see that, you know, like your, your rules, 11 satanic rules of the earth, they're actually like good, you know, that's carrying good things. Like you're not doing bad work at all. You know, it's quite the opposite, right? Yeah. Maybe to you. But of course, if you read those things, yeah, to traditional spiritual religions, not just Christianity, but others. Whereas what we're doing is completely evil to actually take self responsibility, to actually not be shameful about lust.

24:10 To actually want more money for yourself or anything like that you know that's all considered evil so i mean the way i see it as a satanist as well if they're going to call it evil then, okay call me satanist then yeah i'm looking at number three number four number three is when you go into another's lair show him respect or else do not go there and then number four if a a guest in your lair annoys you treat him cruelly and without mercy. And the lair of course doesn't have to be your own house i mean your lair could be inside your car and sure here your your show right now this is your lair so yeah interesting it's such a it's it's so intriguing to me it really is i i have to ask you can you tell me a little more about your your show you host, by the way.

25:01 So yeah, I've been doing The Devil's Mischief for about 18 years now. No, 17 years. So it's a comedy and novelty show that I do. I'm part of Radio Free Satan. So Radio Free Satan is a whole series of podcasts put together by Church of Satan members that we launched back in 2000. And I've been doing a comedy and novelty show there where I play recordings of stand-up comedy, movie excerpts, novelty songs, obscurities like that. And the way The way I think that ties in with Satanism is I do think humor is an inherently satanic thing because it is the precise opposite of piety and the sanctimonious. And to find humor, satire, ridicule, if you find the right one, it can shake down any dogma and expose.

25:51 Lies through ridicule and all that so when when it comes to like selecting your your stand-up if you will do you just because you you play only vinyl correct no no i mean most recently i was playing a couple vinyl excerpts but no i have i have hundreds of comedy cds that i own you know that i've ripped in vinyl and then i i might have bootleg recordings or things like that so i get it from a lot of different sources what's the what's like the go-to comedian or is there a go-to comedian? Well, I'd have to say George Carlin is one that shows up more often than not, and not just because of his religion bashing stuff. I sincerely think he had like a lot of good satanic ideals.

26:33 I think if you read the introduction to his book, Braindroppings, just has a lot of philosophically satanic points to it on his, you know, his misanthropy and his independence and so on. I also run the website, georgecarlin.net. Do you? Yeah, I created that mainly because I was getting really sick of seeing all of these misattributed quotes to Carlin on the Internet. So I wanted to straighten out, you know, the truth from the lies there. What is involved in your role with the Church of Satan? What do you do on a day to day basis? I mean, I assume you have like a job and then and then you do this as well. Or is this your job? No, I mean, I do have a daytime job that actually pays the bills.

27:15 And then when it comes to my role in the Church of Satan, like I said, the titles are honorary, and nobody's obligated to do anything with the roles. But I like taking more of an active role. I run several discussion groups online and, you know, this is my podcast and of course shows like this where I, you know, I come in as a media representative because, you know, we get requests to, you know, to do an article or to do a podcast or radio interview, whatever. I show up for those as well. When you go, when you go and do your, like the, the, the church of Satan, I guess, tour, if you will, what is the, the question you wish you weren't asked all the time?

27:57 Ooh, that's a good question. and I wasn't asked all the time. I don't mind talking about ritual, but I did have to mention something, as I mentioned earlier. Sure. I don't mind doing it, and I don't blame you at all for bringing it up. But again, I just find it amusing that it shows up a lot. Yeah, I mean, that's about it. I've been asked some strange questions off the list. Usually, these questions have nothing to do with us. Like when I get questions about Aleister Crowley and this and that, and it's like, okay, well, he was a Thelemite. It's a completely different religion with its own beliefs and rules and everything. Interesting. Have you ever had to kick anybody out of the church? Oh, yeah. That's happened a number of times before.

28:38 Some people do leave. I mean, we're not a cult. And some people do leave voluntarily. Some people leave because they get different religious beliefs. Over time, they decide, okay, I've kind of had a change in beliefs and this, and I can't really honestly call myself a Satanist anymore. So, you know, they usually part peacefully. Other people we've, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Other people we've kicked out when they were just being, just being complete pests and just being just complete assholes to people. I don't know if assuming I can swear on this podcast. Yes, you can say as much as you want. Other people have once in a while, you know, somebody will seemingly go off the deep end. We've kicked people out for associating with other groups that explicitly condemn us and spread lies about us.

29:22 So what groups can we ask? Yeah, like one of the ones you mentioned earlier. It came up early in this. Okay. You're free in the church, Satan. You can join any other organization you want, so long as it's not somebody who is explicitly trying to bash us or replace us, rival us, or is doing criminal activity. Of course, we don't have tolerance for that. I think any organization, sensible organization, has something like that in place. When a big political movement happens, does the Church of Satan get involved? For example, I'll throw up Black Lives Matter during the George Floyd stuff.

30:04 Does Church of Satan show their support for that, or is that completely 100% on the individual and they can't say, oh, we're part of the Church of Satan, we're supporting Black Lives Matter? So the short answer is no. To get into more detail, it is completely up to the individual Church of Satan member whether they want to go support some cause or, you know, other organization like that. If a Church of Satan member wants to support Black Lives Matter, they're freely welcome to. And you have members that condemn Black Lives Matter, not out of any kind of racial basis, but, you know, there are some questions about where their money is funded, you know, where their money goes to.

30:46 There's been some evidence it goes to a place called Thousand Currents and Act Blue and doesn't actually, like only 4% goes to actually help black communities. So it still comes down to the individual Satanist of what they feel is in his or her best interest and what they want to support. But I would say those expecting the Church of Satan to, we'll continue using Black Lives Matter. Here's this example, support Black Lives Matter. Somebody even tagged us like on Twitter and said, you know, a church of Satan, you should support Black Lives Matter or state here that you support. And it's like, OK, first of all, no, it should be up to the individual because Satanism is we put the individual above the collective. It's about the individual, whether they want to support that or not.

31:28 Second of all, do you really think it would help Black Lives Matter if they said, Black Lives Matter receives support from the Church of Satan? No. Well, when you say it like that. But what if it could, where it's like, I'm saying, you know, maybe I'm speaking facetiously, but like, what if it could? Like, what if we said 100,000 members of the Church of Satan all rallied together to show their support? I mean, that might be a good publicity change, right? Well, publicity change for who? For us? I mean, we're not looking for public acceptance, like I said. We're Satanists.

32:09 Right. And if there were a hundred thousand of us members who wanted to go support that, you could do that individually and you can do that without doing it in the name of the church of Satan. Like, why would you do that? Gotcha. And again, not to mention it would backfire again. Gotcha. I mean, one of the stupidest supports I saw was when people were claiming to be Satanists and showing up at abortion rallies saying, you know, pro-choice, like, you know, we're Satanists here to support pro-choice. It's like, what is the biggest stereotype of Satanism that we sacrifice babies? And it's like, how are you helping the pro-choice movement at all by showing up and saying, yes, Satanists are with you guys?

32:54 I mean, the people on the other side are largely fundamentalist Christians. And if they see that, they're like, oh, well, there you go. See, the people opposite from us are associated with Satanists. So again, it doesn't help Satanism and it doesn't help whatever cause it is you're jumping into. to. How does the Church of Satan fund itself? Does it cost to be a part, a membership fee, or do you guys just take strictly donations? We take a one-time, lifetime membership fee for people who want to join, and then that's all we do. Individuals who want to go set up their own events affiliated with the Church of Satan might charge money to cover their own, individual costs that they're putting on but otherwise that's it so like for for let's say you wanted to host i don't know something do you have to is like does that like an is there like an approval to do it like let's say you want to do the ritual right i just use as as the example do you have to get that approved by like a high priest or you just make that call no you can just make that call i mean we used to have grottos you know the covens if you will the grotto system where we had little individual geographically based groups.

34:12 And we stopped doing that. About 15 to 20 years ago, because with the internet, you don't really need to do that anymore. I mean, if Church of Satan members want to go hook up with each other, first of all, if they want to hook up and collaborate on a project, they're not really limited to who lives around them. Radio Free Satan, going back to that example, that was founded by a group of Satanist COS members in Chicago. But, you know, we have DJs from all around the world who, you know, are making their podcasts and sending them in. You don't need to all be in the same city to do that. So you don't need the Church of Satan's approval to get together with other Satanists and go do things. If you want the Church of Satan to go help network through and promote things, yeah, that's a different story.

34:57 So when it came to our 50th anniversary, for example, in 2016, there were some Satanists who wanted to do something special and wanted to organize organize you know events for that so they had planned those together and with the support of the church of satan as you know an organization they can get that news out to all of the the members who check in and so on and that answers your question yeah that does yeah i think it's um i think what's interesting though about like the entire the entire like i guess i don't want to say setup but the entire like organization i guess is i do like the fact that you guys all kind of. Accept the individual for their individual choices and i think that's a big key to i think.

35:42 Humanity in general is understanding that we have individual choices right and we can make those choices whether they're good or bad or not and i think you know if you make a good choice you know you make a good choice you make a bad one then you have to deal with the consequence of what comes with that right and i think i think all that is it's it's it's it's a it's an open idea and i think it's a good idea and i think it's unfortunate that everybody sees you guys as a as a negative in a negative context right where it's like again just always is to me i've never heard anybody something positive about the church of satan right and it's like is there i don't really know of any evidence where you guys are actually bad or evil you know what i mean like there might be people who claim to be satanist that do unfortunate things but they're not necessarily church of satan people you know what i mean correct yeah we don't allow people to do that there you do occasionally find some crazy person in the news who's hearing voices in his head and either claims to be a Satanist because he, you know, believes Satan is a real thing and worshiping it, or maybe the media just finds, you know, that there's a murder and there are black candles on the scene.

36:45 So they'll write in the headline, oh, Satanist killer. Right. And that's, that's gotta be like a continuous issue, right? Not continuous issue, but like when it happens, it's like, oh, again, right? Like, how do you. Oh yeah. Yeah. We were always sending corrections in to, you know, the media and we're watching things closely, when things like that happen, we've gotten people even in, even in these recent years where you would think like journalists could just take 10 seconds to search. Like, look us up or look on Wikipedia or something like that. They don't care. It's, like, all about the clickbait headlines. But we've gotten some major publications to go retract, you know, some lines when they've said explicit lies. Oh, that's good. That's good. So you guys have people that are, like, kind of PR people that are working to help situations like that to keep you guys.

37:30 Yeah. And that's something I do as well as a media representative. You know, I kind of check in with the other members and say, hey, you know, this article came up that mentions us. And sometimes it's good though. Sometimes it's like, oh, you know, this article mentioned us and well, they did a good job and they didn't really, you know, they didn't have to make up anything or lie. Other times, like I've, I've done interviews with, you know, papers or TV show, TV news programs and stuff. And then they don't end up using anything, you know, of mine or any, anything we've recorded, you know, cause it doesn't fit, fit the narrative. I think some news stations are disappointed. It's like, oh, we wanted to interview you cause we thought, you know you sacrificed babies and did all these other things oh you don't do that well that's like kind of disappointing it doesn't fit into our story about the story yeah yeah uh there's these there's these pictures that i see on on the website that kind of like a scrolling pictures and it's like photos of people kind of dressed up or with these animal head masks on and like naked women and so is there like these crazy parties that that happen that you guys get together and and just kind of let it all hang out, so to speak.

38:37 Oh, yeah, those happen every once in a while. Not as much these days, unfortunately, with COVID and the lockdowns. Yeah, the Zoom. We're trying to be careful. Zoom party where you... Yeah, I've known some people who've done Zoom rituals. We had about a year ago a little Zoom dedication ritual for a member who passed away. But yeah, well, you see there are some examples there from our rituals. Rituals but those are rituals that is that separate from like hey we're all in the church of satan let's just get together and throw a wild party or something is that it's different i mean if church if and when church and satan members want to hook up with each other i mean it may be virtual maybe for other social events you know yeah what do you think we were gonna have to wrap it up here but what do you think is the biggest like misconception of satanism that you wish to just go away well these days the idea that satanism can be anything you want i'd like to see that go away because i just see so many clueless people especially online who take this mishmash of occult stuff or take you know some bits and pieces of things they put online and put it together and say like yeah this is satanism i'm a satanist and it's like no satanism was a A religion codified in 1966 by Antoine LeVay, who then wrote the Satanic Bible.

39:57 There was no, I've seen no evidence of a religion calling itself Satanism before then. Gotcha. There have certainly been devil worshipers that existed throughout the centuries. And there are a lot of those even were cases of aristocrats who were bored and wanted to have an excuse to have an orgy. So they would do like a black mass or something like that. Sure. but an actual religion calling itself satanism with you know complete with an ethics code and, you know symbolism and all this other stuff that to make it an actual religion i've seen no evidence of that prior to the church of satan and i know people on the outside when i make these, points, people who aren't Satanists might say, oh, well, you know, this person from the church of Satan says this person from, I don't know, like the mosque of Lucifer is, he says he's not a real Satanist, but this is just, you know, quabbling between different religion, different religious denominations.

40:52 And I know from the outside, it looks like that, but it's really not because I mean, different religion denominations, their denominations, because they share some kind of theology in common, the different Christian religions, for example, at the end of the day, hey, they still believe in the same God, the same deity structure, the same Bible. They have different interpretations. But when we're talking about the Church of Satan and some serial killer in the news who happens to have like black candles, it's like, no, you can't. I don't think it's right to call that Satanism. Right. There's nothing, it has nothing theologically in common with us. Or these other people who set up groups and call themselves Satanists, but then have nothing in common with us aside from maybe some of the same jewelry. Worry bill it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you it is thank you for providing so much insight to me and mike about everything i think our audience is really gonna enjoy this one because i think one of our big things with our show is that we like to let people just talk about whatever it is you know whether it's politics whether it's video games whether it's comic books i mean we've had a very very wide array of guests and i i'm very thankful for you taking the time and being here and providing us that insight because yeah you definitely have opened up my mind a little more to understanding more about this the religion and understanding, its kind of purpose and stuff so thank you for that yeah sure you guys run a great show and you know we're all humans looking for some kind of way to organize what we're seeing in the world and have a you know lens to view through that and for me that's satanism for somebody else it may be something else absolutely well we like to have you know a lot of different types of points of view on

42:26 things, but I think one thing we can all share, I'm looking at your nine satanic sins and. The number one is probably my favorite one and it's stupidity. And I feel like that should be something that everyone can take from the church of Satan is come on. Let's that that's the top of the list for, for a lot of people, right? Let's just not be so stupid all the time. Yeah. Bill, just one more time. Where can they find your podcast? Guest so i'm on radio free satan.com and my show is the devil's mischief you can find lots of other shows that we have on there as well awesome and then do you have any social medias at all do you want to plug uh yeah you can find everything linked from i'm just a bill.com i'm just i love it schoolhouse rock i've had that uh domain name since the late 90s oh that's awesome awesome my younger audience is probably like what does that mean schoolhouse uh bill thank you again so much I really do appreciate your time.

43:25 Mike, do you have any last words? Let's not be stupid. Let's not be stupid indeed. Thank you again, Bill. Take care, okay? Music.