In Judaism and Christianity, Satan is the personification of evil. And “evil” is understood to imply “a cause of suffering”.

But to tens of thousands of healthy, schooled, well heeled persons in the Western world the name means something entirely different. Joined together in cults, they worship a good Satan – good in ways that are conventionally understood to be good.

The Daily Mail reports on one such cult, The Satanic Temple.

Since TST’s founding in 2012 [by Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry], the organization has increased from a handful of members to tens of thousands, with chapters all over the US and the globe, from Stockholm to London and Los Angeles to Texas. And their “pranksterism” … has given way to a well-conceived ethos, forming an organized “religion” for a “group of contrarians” opposed to any organization at all. …

“Contrarians”? Doing shocking, but not illegal, things – the way teenagers do or say something defiant to challenge their parents, or Communists to “spite the bourgeois”?

They say they are against “tyrannical authority”.

A member of the cult explained it to Sheila Flynn, the Daily Mail reporter:

“Modern Satanism is a non-theistic religious practice that uses the literary symbol of Satan as a kind of symbol against tyrannical authority.”

In fact, as Satanists – they will have it known – they do really good things:

“In reality, what’s going on here is nice people gathering in their communities who organize charity events …”

Their stated doctrine hardly defies convention:

The seven tenets of The Satanic Temple [are]:  

One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason

The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions

One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone 

The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own

Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should never distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs 

People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused

Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word

So these “Satanists” are for nobility in action and thought: compassion; empathy; wisdom; justice; rectifying harm; reason; pursuing truth through science; respecting freedom and the inviolability of the person.

Occasion for defiance of convention is suggested by their principle that the pursuit of justice should “prevail over laws and institutions”. No objective determination of what is just, then? Rather a matter of what you feel to be just? A preference for subjective justice? If so, reason – though declared to be the guide of “compassion and empathy” – is demoted here.

To hold that the body should be inviolable is a fine idea, a noble thought; but violators abound, not only human but bacterial, viral, animal, and inanimate, and defending the body from violation is the business of law and institutions as well as science.

Reason is reinstated in the statement that belief must depend on scientific understanding. The only trouble about that is that there are different understandings of what science proves – differences that at present make for passionate controversy.

Is there anything that links them to more recognizably Satanic cults?

Well, they adhere to the known symbolism:

The Satanic Temple … is not afraid to take legal action when it feels that representations of Baphomet and other Satanic icons are not accurate reflections of its ethos and organization.  When Netflix released its new Chilling Adventures of Sabrina series last autumn, for example, the show featured a goat-headed statue of Baphomet – very similar to a sculpture commissioned by TST – which the Temple contended was portrayed as evil. The Satanic Temple sued Warner Brothers and Netflix – and in November announced that it had ‘amicably settled’ the lawsuit …

So they are for Baphomet, as they are for Satan, but against evil.

What of their rites and rituals? The Daily Mail shows pictures from a video in which a black mass is being performed in one of their temples.

But, “They’re as likely to run charity blood drives or collect sanitation products for homeless women as they are to take part in any sort of dark ritual.”

Do its acolytes consider it to be a religion?

“The Satanic Temple,’ [says] religious studies professor R. Andrew Chesnut, “actually present themselves as atheistic and really see Satan more as a metaphor.”

More than what? A god?   

“They’ve actually been criticized by other old-school Satanist groups – how on earth can you say you’re Satanists, but at the same time claim to be atheistic? Because if you believe in Satan, Satan is a supernatural figure. So they’re really kind of a new generation of Satanists, and I think more than actual veneration of Satan, this is really about much more kind of politicized.” 

He [Professor Chesnut] adds: “They don’t really seem engaged in the kind of organized rituals and worship that the older-school Satanist groups do.”

And one member, Jex Blackmore, confirms the professor’s understanding that the TST is primarily a political movement. She says:

“If you’re godless , free-thinking and are a rebel, then you are a Satanist in the eyes of many in our community and society and, certainly, by people in your government, whether you like it or not. … Before I decided I was a Satanist, it was really the Bible that said, ‘This is what a Satanist was like.’ The story of Adam and Eve is a story of Eve’s original sin. Eve was very curious, as her nature was as a woman. The devil appeared in the form of a snake and offers the fruit of enlightenment. We are taught to fear that, but at the same time, it seems the most liberating – because if we did not have that opportunity, we would have to be in total servitude, without free choice. Ultimate servitude is slavery; reframing it in the light of salvation is probably one of the greatest tricks ever played on humankind. Satanism is about embracing that Satanic status, rather than being controlled by it. … The devil directly challenged God, so – as a Satanist – I believe that directly confronting injustice and corrupt authority is an expression of one’s Satanic faith – and I believe activism is a Satanic practice. Traditionally, Satanists practice very privately, closed doors, black candles, black metal music, but with the Satanic philosophy being where Satanism represents rebellion against arbitrary authority, we believe it requires a level of political participation. I think that we need to go into the public sphere and announce ourselves without shame.”

That’s exactly what the temple has done over the past nearly six years. It’s fought for a statue of Baphomet … to be displayed on government grounds alongside the Ten Commandments to demonstrate the pluralism and religious diversity of the United States.

It planned a Black Mass on the Harvard campus in Boston – one of the most Catholic cities in America – to directly contravene the teachings and traditions of one of the world’s largest religions (though it was postponed and moved to a Chinese restaurant/comedy club when the Boston Archdiocese staged a massive counter march).

To act out against the Westboro Baptist Church – perhaps one of the most reviled religious factions in America, which protests soldier funerals, denounces gays and basically thinks that everyone is going to hell except members – the Satanic Temple held an unholy ceremony at the grave of [Westboro Baptist Church’s] founder Fred Phelps’s mother.

Penny Lane is the maker of the film about the TST titled Hail Satan! She says:

“There’s a growing, rapid disenchantment with the institutional religions. I think that we live in an era which is increasingly secular, especially amongst younger people. People do research from here to here; there are more and more younger people who are separating themselves from that kind of religious tradition of religious institutions. And there’s something really lost with that. You lose a lot.

“Religion provides a way of healing, meaning, and organization and narrative, coherent and community and ethical kind of standards or ways we consider difficult problems of how to live your life. That’s heavy stuff. So when you lose religion, you get a whole lot of people like myself who find themselves casting about for that kind of organizing principle.

“In The Satanic Temple kind of reincarnation of Satanism, they set up a kind of answer to that problem that resonates for a lot of people. It’s not for everyone; it’ll never be popular, per se. If it was, it would obviate the need for its own existence. I mean, they’re supposed to be the outsider; they’re supposed to be the outsider. They’re supposed to be the kind of minority.

“They’re not going to take over the world or anything, but there’s obviously people who see themselves as being part of that marginalized outsider status [who] still want to be able to engage society and find brethren and organize themselves. That’s what they do, and they’ve really hit upon something that really does resonate for a lot more people than maybe I thought at the beginning.”

Professor Chesnut says:

“In many ways [the TST Satanists] are more Christian than a lot of parts of the Bible – and so what a lot of us would think about Satanism is definitely not reflected there. And advocating social justice and compassion and nobody has the right to tell you what to do with your body and everything – and I would say, also, putting it into a larger context, we’ve seen the proliferation in general of paganism and Wiccanism, witchcraft and stuff. … I think this also is part of this kind of burgeoning interest in alternative pagan religions, particularly among millennials and Generation Z and stuff. The most important trend on the American religious landscape is the very rapid rise of the religious “nones” – those who have no formal religious institutional affiliation – which is now 25 percent of the American population, which is now more than Catholics.”

While looking wicked, they are – by their own lights – doing good.

And apart from everything else, the Satanists have a lot of fun.

In John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, Satan says: “Evil be thou my Good!” The TST Satanists’ slogan could be: “Good be thou my Evil!”

If their name, rites and symbols shock the churches, no harm done.

We have yet to discover on which side of the great political divide they stand. Their stated respect for freedom and reason, justice and science, suggests they may be on our side.

But one of their two founders, Lucien Greaves, says in the documentary film about them: “This is the infancy of The Satanic Temple. In our own humble little way, we are changing the world.” Which suggests they are unaware what evil really is, that it is a constant of the human condition – or else that they are heedless of the danger of flirting with it.