Followers of The Satanic Temple (TST) say they have found a home in their burgeoning religious cult, rejecting religion in many cases by joining their own that suits their lifestyle.
"Satanism stands for everything I believe in, including bodily autonomy, compassion, respect, science. And Satan represents those who were cast out, those who think differently," Typhon Nyx told the BBC at the SatanCon in Boston in late April.
"I never found my friends being accepted in the Christian circles. The appeal of Satan is that he is the accepting one, the inclusive one, and someone I can more identify with – although, I don't believe he actually exists."
Nyx gave the BBC a fictious name – a "Satanym" those in the TST call it, merging Satan and pseudonym – saying he is no longer atheist and now considers himself Satanic.
His story is like some of the 830 SatanCon attendees that descended upon the Marriott Copley Place in Boston. While members of the TST did not give their name, they did give their support and loyalty to the movement that they believe accepts them.
"As a gay child, being told you are an abomination and should be destroyed, warped a lot of my thinking," one told the BBC. "Finding The Satanic Temple has really helped me embrace logic and empathy."
At Satancon, a man who gave the BBC the "Satanym" Lucien Greaves, which internet searches reveal as Douglas Mesner, a Harvard educated social activist, said he is the co-founder of The Satanic Temple.
"People are hesitant to take anything we say at face value, but I feel like everything we say is pretty straightforward and we're not misrepresenting ourselves at all," Greaves told BBC.
One TST recruit came upon the cult through TikTok during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
"I feel like I've always been quote-unquote a Satanist, I just didn't know it," Araceli Rojas, who flew from California to join Satancon, told BBC.
"At that point I looked into it. A little scared, I think, like most would be. And I really wanted to make sure that they weren't sacrificing babies! Then I started getting into the culture, and the scene, and I started to join meetings … and eventually I realized no, they're not, it's just a symbol that they use and it's genuinely really good people."
Some of the scenes in Boston were supportive of abortion, according to the BBC.
"Samuel Alito's mom's Satanic abortion clinic," a t-shirt at Satancon read, which is the name of TST's telehealth clinic in New Mexico, according to BBC.
Alito is the conservative Supreme Court justice that wrote the decision that overruled Roe v. Wade and kicked abortion law back to the states last year. Alito's decision was leaked months before the official ruling was released by the court, and an investigation has reveal no suspects to date.
Greaves defended the name of his online abortion services provider.
"Part of the consideration was refusing to yield to this idea that everything must be sober and humorless to be authentic at all," Greaves told BBC.
"My thinking on that was – nothing could be more serious than us opening a telehealth clinic. I just would hate to see us lose any sense of humor."
TST also has plunged head-first into schools and exposure to children, pushing to have After School Satan Clubs under the banner "Educatin' with Satan," according to the report.
The BBC quoted its kids song "My Pal Satan," which features a goat.
"Satan's not an evil guy, he wants you to learn and question why," the lyrics go. "He wants you to have fun and be yourself – and by the way there is no hell."
But TST members say they go through hell struggling to exist because of those that consider the TST blasphemy.
"That's not wrong," Dex Desjardins, TST spokesperson, told BBC. "A lot of our imagery is inherently blasphemous.
"We've got folks who wear inverted crosses. And our opening ceremony did have the ripping up of a Bible as a symbol of oppression, especially oppression of LGBTQ folk and women, and also the BIPOC community, and pretty much anybody who's grown up with religious trauma, which is a tremendous number of our members."
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