In Baphomet we trust

 

"Hail Satan?" is a 2019 documentary about the controversial activist group The Satanic Temple (TST) in the United States. Critics not featured in the docu claim that TST really are Satanists, or at the very least fascists, pretending to be a exotic but benign civil libertarian group. "Hail Satan?" takes a less critical approach, and essentially comes across as pro-TST. Make of that what you wish, but the production is still interesting. At the very least, it shows how TST *wants* to be seen, and as many of its individual supporters want to be seen. 

TST comes across as extremely eclectic, quite unlike the Church of Satan, which was obvioulsy a hedonistic and right wing libertarian group of provocateurs. By contrast, TST blend ACLU-like rhetoric with feminism, gay rights, street theater, sado-masochistic performance art, and more "typical" black masses. The SJW-ish tint looks strange on a supposedly Satanist group, and becomes even more weird when the members volunteer for community service at various venues! I also get the impression that the initial provocations get bogged down in legal red tape, while the group itself becomes more bureaucratized, and even starts expelling some of its members. The leader of an expelled chapter in Detroit brags about being too extreme even for The Satanic Temple, but in many ways, she is just a tiresome SJW with stereotypically "Satanist" paraphernalia (pig heads on pikes, and the like). 

The main activity of TST is to challenge a number of US states which has placed The Ten Commandments on capitol grounds, something civil libertarians argue is unconstitutional. To create commotion, TST demands that their statue of the horned "god" Baphomet (often seen as a depiction of Satan) should also be placed outside state capitols, a demand automatically withdrawn the moment the Ten Commandments are removed. At another point, TST demanded to read a Satanic invocation at a city council meeting where Christian prayers were regularly recited. The documentary shows how TST are challenged by Christian fundamentalists of various stripes (including the notorious "Tradition, Family, Property") whose understanding of the First Amendment is minimal at best. 

Interspersed throughout "Hail Satan?" are comments by scholars who argue that modern Satanism is trolling, or that the United States wasn´t founded as a so-called Christian nation. There is also some criticism of the so-called Satanic Panic of the 1980´s, and attacks by Christian fundamentalists on "Dungeons & Dragons" or heavy metal.

"Hail Satan?" does raise a number of questions. Can you LARP as a Satanist without *somehow* being influenced by the centuries-old Satanist "egregore", so to speak? Or has the egregore changed? Isn´t this kind of kitsch Satanism only possible in American suburbia, where there is relatively little obvious evil? Imagine showing up with a Baphomet statue in Mexico! And whoever heard of converged Satanists, anyway? 

Perhaps not the most objective look at the neo-Satanist problematique, but there you go.