๐๐ง๐ญ๐๐ซ๐ฏ๐ข๐๐ฐ ๐ฐ๐ข๐ญ๐ก ๐๐ข๐ง๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐๐ซ ๐๐ซ๐จ๐๐ญ๐จ๐ซ ๐จ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐ฅ๐จ๐ '๐๐๐ฎ๐ซ๐จ๐๐ข๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ ๐๐ง๐ญ ๐๐๐ญ๐๐ง๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ'
Minister Richard Proctor has been an unexpected allie whom has contributed towards my Satanic journey in a really supportive way.
Our journey's have run almost parallel to one another. From both being pretty wary of each other to becoming fully supportive of one another realising outside entities had more of a influence on our opinion of each other than our actual opinions that we concluded from own intuition of each other lol! We're both creators of Satanic blogs whom both like to be involved in the wider TST outside of our own candidate groups and we're both mad enough to up start many projects involved with TST and the Satanic community.
Seeking people from the wider community to get involved with my blog to promote their own materials to me feels like I'm giving back to my community and not making this blog so one sided.
Lillith Star has often said (I'm powerquoting here) how Satanists need to be writing material as we are such a new religion and I love being able to contribute towards that.
WELCOME TO THE STAGE... MINISTER RICHARD PROCTOR OF SATANIC BLOG NEURODIVERGENT SATANIST!
Please introduce yourself to my audience!
I'm Richard Proctor, an Irish Minister of Satan based in southern France and currently one of the people running the Friends of TST France group.
What was your introduction to Satanism and when did you
discover TST?
So Satanism was something that was always on the fringe of my experience, whether I realised it or not. It was something from the movies, right? Pentagrams etched into the ground, demons and devils and hooded figures and secret meetings and all that Hollywood stuff.
I stumbled across someone on twitter in early 2019 talking about how they were a Satanist and sharing the 7 fundamental tenets of TST. Reading them, I had that moment of "Wait, this is a Satanic moral code? This is MY moral code! Does that mean...?"
So I wanted to learn more about TST and wouldn't you know it, a documentary had just come out. So watching that, I saw more than a bunch of goth looking weirdos trying to fight theocracy in the US. I saw my tribe.
I also came from a background of being involved in the metal music scene in Ireland so now I thought to myself "Wait, I get to wear pentagrams, say" Hail Satan" and call it my religion? Hell yeah! "
When did you start your blog?
July 2021. It was still very much in that time when the world was starting to open up a little, everyone was working from home, staying indoors, and the threat of covid was still hanging in the air so I spent a lot of time online (I don't think that ever really stopped!) and I was quite active in my local satanic community so these discussions on Satanic topics like Baphomet and the tenets were every day things for me so my mind was on Satanism quite a bit and I guess I started the blog as another outlet.
From myself being previously inspired by your work. What inspires you to write about a topic?
Well, occasionally, something will just come up in regular discussion and I'll have that thought of "I have a lot more to say on this topic than is socially appropriate right now" and the kind of autistic person that loves to explain things to people, I figured a blog would be a healthy output where I can post my ramblings.
It's since kind of evolved from it's original concept of being a personal blog about my neurodivergence and my satanism to being centrally satanically themed and educative in its aims.
Do you think Satanism is now a mainstream topic?
Did it ever stop? Satanism was always there but as I said before, it was a thing from the movies: The possibility that your friendly, unassuming neighbour secretly gathers with others at night in hooded robes to worship the devil. I think Rosemary's Baby has a lot to do with perpetuating this into the mainstream as well as any and all mention of secret societies like the Illuminati. It all contributes to this social paranoia of thinking โpeople may not be who they seemโ. But nowadays, yeah, Satanism has become more mainstream with no small thanks to TST being in the news so much in the US.
What advice would you give to newer Satanists?
My kneejerk answer to this is to say that I wouldn't give them any advice. They will do whatever they want and make their own discoveries for thtrmselves, the way they should. But when i think on it a bit more, you know, if I had to give some advice to someone new to TST specifically, then it would probably be this: learn as much as you can about TST and it's community and then ask yourself what you want to get out of it. Are you looking for a community of fellow social misfits? Are you looking to deepen your knowledge of Satanism? Do you want to go out and protest theotractic doctrine made law or even do charity work in your community? Whatever your reasoning is, look very closely at what you want, at what TST is and make sure its the right fit for you. It doesn't suit everyone.
How do you feel about criticism of your work or yourself, does this ever effect your work flow?
On a higher level, I love and welcome all criticism of my work because it helps to improve what I do next time around. No one could ever criticise my work in a way I didn't already do during the making of whatever it is so rarely does anything come as a surprise.
How do you feel about the term Satan Famous?
I've a short answer and a long answer, but explanation of what we mean by โSatan Famousโ is needed. The community of very active TST Satanists is still small enough that whenever anyone does something noteworthy (usually write a book), they become more well known in the community as their book gets recommended to others and so more of the community know this person's name, hence the term, Satan Famous. Now, it's not just the authors, you've got the
spokespeople, the members who direct campaigns, the executive ministry...there's quite a few individuals we'll known within the community.
But where I often hear the term Satan Famous these days is in an accusatory way, like, โOh he's just trying to be Satan Famousโ and it's always confused me why this is a bad thing. If somebody wants to gain notoriety within the community, I don't see an issue with it. Is it distasteful to utilise a religious community solely for your own clout? In my opinion, yeah, if that's all your doing. If you're not bringing anything else to the table and giving back to the community then I think that has a way of correcting itself as the community tends to not take too kindly to these kinds of people.
How does it feel being a new Satanic Dad?
It's the best feeling in the world. I personally always wanted to be a dad so having the chance to raise a human to go out and be the positive force for good that I always wanted to be is a great feeling. As for being a Satanic dad, there's this odd question that hangs in the air of how much satanism should the child be exposed to. One thing we're often highly critical of in Satanism is the indoctrination of children into a religious faith. But I know that Satanism is rational and logical and spouses empathy and compassion And wisdom and justice in its moral code so would that not be a good kind of indoctrination?
Not really, because it's still indoctrination. Instead, the plan is that my partner and I will still continue practicing our satanism as we do in our household and if the child has questions about it later in life then ill answer them. I think being surrounded by pentagrams and baphomets, you know, traditional symbols of evil, is going to help them grow up to be a bit more open minded about things. Hopefully.
Do you feel your blog will merge with your candidate congregation?
No I don't think so but I don't think I fully understand what it would look like to โmergeโ the blog with a local community. My blog is a personal endeavor where I can post whatever the hell I want because I pay the hosting. Quite recently, since becoming a dad, I just don't have the same time that I used to to write dedicated articles for it and so I now use it to post the declamations I have delivered for Temple Weekend Services.
As for the candidate group, I wouldn't even call it โmyโ group in the possessive sense. I help push papers in the back group and steer the direction the group takes but I've made it eery clear from the outset that I am doing so in a strictly temporary capacity until a suitable candidate can take over as my knowledge of the local language is terrible!
Do you have any Satanic figures that inspire you or any main teachers in your Satanic journey that you can recommend for the audience?
To be totally honest, not really. Well, kind of. My satanism has taken inspiration from a number of sources but the one I would recommend most highly is English philosopher Alain de Botton. His โReligion for Atheistsโ has been the single most influential book on my Satanic practice and it doesn't mention satanism once. You can find videos of him giving talks on the subject all over YouTube so I recommend checking them out.
What other projects do you have on and do you have any other channels that you'd like to share?
Well, I guess I can talk about my new show for TST TV. โFruits of Knowledgeโ is going to be a show where I interview people within our community from all sorts of backgrounds to educate the public on what their lived experience is truly like. Trans people, the BIPOC community, Satanists with disabilities...yeah, so that's currently in production. I'd say it's likely to hit TST TV sometime in February, March, something like that. I've lots of stuff in the works, more TST TV stuff, some blog stuff, but all in good time!
Thank you so much Minister for your work, your inspirational contributions and genuinely being a supportive guy of BAFOSatan. and myself. (I'm so smug knowing the 'first family of EURO-TST' hehe)
Hail Satan,
Minister Sitri Tommy Belucifer
Catch me and Minister Proctor on a few services together: https://open.spotify.com/episode/69xCOAY4vqnu0zGCUTUDj6?si=9a49e5df625b4afc