Hot off the press! Yesterday’s article about furries and Satan was inspired by the documentary Hail Satan? — available online next week, July 23.

I saw it in May and mentioned it to Deo Tasdevil, who surprised me with a story about being welcomed by The Satanic Temple to fursuit at their Baphomet unveiling party in Detroit. They even specifically welcomed animal costumes.

Watch the movie to see their Baphomet statue made to be placed at Oklahoma’s capital. It was a free speech/equal access counter action to a Ten Commandments monument that was put on public property despite separation of church and state.

I’d tried to reach them with a media request. It seemed like a possible story of kinship with a hairy goat-man with a sensationalized lusty reputation, who rebelled against conformity and the mainstream to be himself.

Then Deo told me: “a friend of mine, also a furry, works at the Temple of Satan in Salem, MA.”

I said: “I’m dying, this is so funny. Furries are EVERYWHERE. Even in Satan’s lair.”

Learning that Gemini De Chant worked there made a great opportunity to talk. (Better the devil you know…) Their subcultural spectacle was fairly new to me, but of course we would get along great.

(Patch:) Hi Gemini, thanks for talking and I’m glad Deo introduced us!

(Gemini De Chant:) So, anything you’d like to know? In the fandom I’m Sanita Squirrel. http://www.furaffinity.net/user/sanitasquirrel/

I’m curious about how furries and Satan go together. Want to talk about experiences, gossip, philosophy?

Tons! I’m pretty open about being both a Satanist and a furry.

I liked hearing about fursuiting at the Baphomet unveiling, is that common?

As far as I know Deo was the only one that had a fursuit at the Detroit event (the Unveiling). However, there are a bunch of furries in the Satanic Temple aside from just me. I know of a few down in Arkansas, two in Boston, one in San Marco, and a couple in Kentucky.

I loved the Pink Mass to turn Fred Phelps’ mom gay in the afterlife. (Phelps founded the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church of “God Hates Fags” infamy.) I’d love to stage a furry hug-in at any hate demonstration where it would be safe. I organized one for a threatened Westboro protest.

A hug-in would be a neat idea but the Third Tenet means that it would have to be with people that gave permission and wanted the hugs.

Would you like a little background on my involvement?

Oh yeah no surprise hugs, more like with each other. And sure! Before I knew of furries involved, I thought it would be fun to do an article about how Satan was the original furry. His goat legs, liberation, sexiness etc.

Interesting though that depiction is lifted from the Green Man of old Celtic area lore.

Neat. I’ll bet there was quite a bit of mixing with old Satyr myths, etc.

Quite a bit. Satyrs are also mentioned in the King James version of the Bible along with unicorns.

So, I got involved with the Temple in 2015 after Deo told me about it. I knew about the Church of Satan but the whole ‘might makes right’ philosophy they had really didn’t sit well with me. Their founder, Anton LaVey had some squirrelly ideas and this is coming from someone whose fursona is a squirrel.

So I looked them up and found a chapter in my city. I arranged a meet up, did some research before the meeting, and hit it off with the Maine Chapter.

Unfortunately the Maine Chapter had to go inactive because the Chapter Head had way too much going on in her life at the time. However, before hand we took a ‘field trip’ where I got to meet the Temple’s Lucien Greaves in person.

Lucien is good on camera, especially with the fundie senator he was trolling by photobombing in the movie. I really dig the live in person active vibe. Street fursuiting is my favorite thing, better than tame hotel conventions.

He is really down to earth in person. When the Salem HQ was getting ready to open I helped them out and have tried to do so every October since. Salem gets crazy busy around that time.

He seemed candid on the camera too, like not a practiced actor. A bit awkward but smart, it’s disarming.

Since then I have been doing a lot of studying on Satanism. For a religion (Modern Satanism) that is relatively new (just over 50 years old) there is a surprising amount of history.

He’s got a degree from Harvard in neuroscience. Also he will destroy you in werewolf movie trivia.

Werewolf trivia with Lucien sounds good. I love pulp horror. Lovecraft or whatever, eldritch monsters driving you mad or making bargains for your soul. Have any animalistic crossover, talking squirrel visions, furry temple tours, or fandom interest stories?

We did have a group of Boston furries roll through and I was doing my best not to ‘out’ myself while at Salem but eventually I was able to nudge the one wearing a blue wolf partial fursuit and dropped a hint that I was furry too.

Just use a dogwhistle.

That was a night when I brought a gallon of mead to the HQ. Since I was working the weekends I’d get to stay over night.

Would you say “The Satanic Temple welcomes furries” and could fursuiting could be part of another event?

The Satanic Temple totally welcomes furries! Hell, Deo is the one that introduced me. Also I need to say that while I am a member of the Satanic Temple I don’t speak for them.

It’s great talking to you! Anything else to share?

A few Salem pics.

Thanks to Gemini for sharing this look at surprisingly not-too-evil activity. If you think “Keep Furry Weird” is worthwhile, I’m glad to help. – Patch

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