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Have a Satanic Fourth of July, Everybody!

Satanists are all about freedom, and isn't today Independence Day?

The author at a Satanic black mass. All photos by Cody Orrell

Hot dogs on the grill. Cold Budweiser in hand. Blake Shelton blaring from your speakers. Sounds like the Fourth of July the way God intended: boring as hell. Thankfully, there's an alternative route: celebrating freedom like a Satanist. The Satanic Temple loves nothing if not liberty, and many Satanists believe America is the only country where Satanism can really flourish. America is a nation founded on values of religious and individual freedom—and there may be no one who embodies those ideals more extremely than a Satanist.

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To find out more about celebrating the Fourth in Satanic style, I called up the cofounder of and spokesman for the Satanic Temple, Lucien Greaves, who also goes by Doug Mesner. (You may have seen him schooling Megyn Kelly on Wednesday night.)

The Satanic Temple had a recent victory when the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Capitol grounds. The Temple built their own monument of Baphomet to erect alongside the Ten Commandments in Oklahoma, but now that the Ten Commandments monument has been taken down, they're turning their attention elsewhere. The statue may end up in Arkansas, where the state just recently approved a new Ten Commandments monument on Capitol grounds. It's like playing Ten Commandments whack-a-mole.

I spoke to Greaves about the American Revolution, our history of paranoia, how the Satanic Temple is fighting for freedom in America, and how to party like a Satanist on Independence Day. Hint: Celebrate however the fuck you want. But maybe don't play Blake Shelton.

VICE: Let's talk about the Fourth of July. To me, the Satanic Temple seems like an embodiment of American freedom.
Lucien Greaves: The idea that we're the true embodiment of American freedom is an under-recognized concept. A lot of conspiracy theory ideas attributed to Satanism really formed the modern paranoia [about Satanists]. [For example,] there's the idea that the French Revolution was contrived by the Jews, the Illuminati, or the Freemasons; the shorthand term is always "Satanists." There's that idea of the "threat from below." [When it comes to] the American Revolution, it's interesting that the independence of the United States was supported by politicians that belong to the Hellfire Club, one of the most ostentatious "Satanic" movements of the day.

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A lot of people feel like this is the one nation where Satanism can truly exist and flourish.

Which people seem to forget sometimes today.
It's funny given the conservative push today for religious values, because we have a constitution that is a direct contradiction to the Ten Commandments. You have commandments like 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me' and that kind of thing, which directly contradicts the First Amendment, our explicit separation of church and state. But even with the American Revolution and the development of a secular nation, we have that fear of a "threat from below" [from any oppressed group]. There are still prevalent conspiracy theories about Jews. When we were keeping slaves, it was believed that slaves had pacts with the Devil that helped them overthrow their oppressor, as well. But earlier, before the revolution, [people believed] the Native Americans were Satanized. Even today, we have simple-minded idiots like Pat Robertson putting forward these notions. It's funny how given the paranoia and supernatural notions about Satanists, there's still this idea that Satanism [the force behind] the oppressed who are going to overthrow their oppressor. In that way, it perfectly fits in with the idea of independence in the American Revolution!

Will you expand on the Temple's concept of independence and freedom?
Well, that's really what the whole metaphor for Satan is from the Miltonian perspective. The ultimate rebel against the ultimate tyranny.

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What do Satanists think of the Fourth of July as a holiday?
You will actually find a strand within Satanism of people who do have a sense of patriotism and pride for the United States, for the very fact that we were founded explicitly as a secular nation. A lot of people feel like this is the one nation where Satanism can truly exist and flourish. [America] is often portrayed as a Christian nation and we have this virulent strand of Evangelicalism, especially today, but we view it completely differently. We think more in line with what the founding fathers intended.

What does the holiday symbolize for Satanists?
We don't dictate those types of things, but as responsible hedonists, any time to celebrate is a good time.

Speaking of freedom, you guys are filing a federal lawsuit against Missouri's abortion restrictions. Will you tell me about that?
In Missouri, we have two lawsuits against the abortion restrictions, a state lawsuit and a federal lawsuit. They have an informed consent mandate in Missouri that demands that a woman read material that is fraudulent and medically invalid. It's just outright wrong. The material explicitly puts forward a religious opinion: life at conception. And that's in contradiction to our own view, which is that a nonviable fetus should be considered tissue, and it's up to the woman whose body harbors it whether she wants to keep it or not.

You've done a lot of research on false memories. Would you say, in a sense, Americans have a false memory of our nation's history?
When you're writing an autobiographical narrative it's true, there's a definite push for that right now. There's Texas of course, they're trying to revise their textbooks to includes Moses as one of the founding fathers. There's definitely a revisionism that's trying to benefit a theocratic view that has no place in American foundational values at all.

What are you going to be doing on the 4th of July?
You know, I haven't actually made plans yet. It's possible that I'll be with the monument, helping it come to Detroit.

What's a good Satanic way to celebrate?
Any way you want.

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