Non-Theistic Activist Satanism

The Satanic Temple affirms a non-theistic, activist Satanism centred on reason, compassion, and social engagement. It does not believe in a literal Satan or the supernatural but adopts the Satanic figure of the rebel as a symbol of defiance against tyranny and of the pursuit of justice. Much of its public life takes the form of campaigns for the separation of religion and government, religious pluralism, and bodily autonomy, often through pointed legal actions that test the equal treatment of belief. It presents Satanism as a lived ethical and civic stance rather than a set of supernatural claims.

The Satanic Temple was founded in 2013 by Lucien Greaves (a pseudonym for Douglas Mesner) and Malcolm Jarry, based in Salem, Massachusetts. Its first major public action was a mock rally in support of Florida governor Rick Scott after he signed legislation permitting student-led prayer at school events, staged to highlight that such a law would in principle open public schools to Satanic invocations on the same terms as Christian ones. It gained wider national attention through a campaign, beginning in 2014, to install a statue of Baphomet on the grounds of the Oklahoma State Capitol after a Ten Commandments monument had been placed there, a campaign that became a widely covered test case for religious equal-access arguments even though the statue itself was ultimately not installed at the Capitol.