Diversity Rules Magazine

4 Diversity Rules Magazine February 2015 Lucien Greaves is co-founder of, and spokesperson for, The Satanic Temple, an organization whose stated mission to fa- cilitate the "commu- nication and mobi- lization of politically aware Satanists, secu- larists, and advocates for individual liberty." Presenting Satan- ism as a non-theistic religion, The Satanic Temple has fought to ensure plurality is re- spected wherever the line between Church and State has been breached. The Satan- ic Temple is best known for its ongoing efforts to erect a Satanic monument alongside a 10 Com- mandments monument at the Oklahoma State Capitol building. JRK: Can you give Diversity Rules readers an idea of who Lucien Greaves is -- where you are from and all that good basic information? LG: I grew up keenly aware of the moral panic per- meating the talk-show culture during the 80s and into the 90s related to claims of Satanism. Self-proclaimed "survivors" were coming forward with stories of forced involvement in secretive, murderous cults that would breed babies for the purpose of ritual sacrifice, had mastered the art of subliminal mind-control, and were working with twisted religious zeal to under- mine everything deemed good and moral in Civilized Society. Claims of a Satanist conspiracy vast enough to have covert support in every community, official agency, and into the highest reaches of Government -- a tin-foil hat narrative of the most delusional kind -- actually, for a time, enjoyed mainstream attention, igniting nothing short of a literal witch-hunt. With- out any credible evidence at all people were sent to prison -- some of them stayed there for decades -- accused of taking part in Satanic activities that were completely fabricated. Somewhere in the time that this was all going on, I was growing into my own person, increasingly skepti- cal of supernatural claims, and especially appalled by the grotesque behaviors of institutions that claimed to hold a monopoly upon moral decency. In fact, given the scandals of the Church, it increasingly appeared that the false claims against Satanists were but guilty projections. For many years before co-founding e Satanic Tem- ple, I sought out, spoke with, and learned about, self- identified Satanists of all types, developing an under- standing of the common elements that draw people to identify as Satanists. is was an introspective act as well, as my own feelings of alienation from main- stream culture and antipathy toward authority helped foster in me a deep affinity for the marginalized and obscure. I naturally identified with Satanism as a way of embracing an outsider status. Clearly, the claims put forward in the Satanic Panic were false, but there is a subculture for whom Satanism holds real mean- ing. I became deeply motivated to seek the instigators and learn the causes of the Satanic Panic. What I found was a deeply disturbing failure in our mental health care system that leads back to the general irresponsi- bility of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). e Satanic Panic was largely spurred along by so- called "recovered memories" brought to light in the course of Multiple Personality Disorder treatment. A delusional conspiracist fringe grouping of licensed mental health professionals, invested in the idea of repressed trauma, is convinced that most any sign of psychological disturbance or malaise is indicative of past trauma concealed in the memories of alternate personalities coexisting in their client's mind. Hyp- nosis and other methods are used to draw forth the hidden memories, just as some hypno-therapists be- lieve they can regress clients to remember past lives or episodes of alien abduction. It's a debunked and dan- gerous "therapeutic" practice that is still advocated by bullshit organizations like the International Society for the Study Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD). e "memories,"of course, turn out to be bizarre som- nambulistic confabulations that tend to align with the therapist's own leading presumptions. All cred- ible Research Psychology refutes the theory of Mul- tiple Personality Disorder (MPD)(now re-branded as Dissociative Identity Disorder [DID]), and even the head of the American Psychiatric Association's chair for the 4th edition of their Diagnostic and Statisti- cal Manual (DSM) agrees that diagnosis is bunk, yet the APA -- ever spineless, and increasingly disgraceful A Chat With Lucien Greaves Co-Founder of and Spokesman for The Satanic Temple Encouraging Benevolence and Empathy Among All People An Interview By Jim Koury, Editor/Publisher

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