Episode 185: The Year In Satanism

by | Dec 24, 2024 | Episodes | 0 comments

The year is almost One, and it’s time to give the devil his due again.

 

 

SHOW LINKS

  • “Experimental Doc Reveals The Ugly Truth About Satanism—It’s Corny,” Charles Barfield,” The Playlist, Feb 2024: “Realm of Satan” follows folks who are members of the Church of Satan, who, judging by this film, are more interested in chanting in dark rooms, performing outdoor rituals, and, uh, sleight of hand magic? Through a series of vignettes, we get a static camera shot focused on one (sometimes two or three) members of the Church as they showcase their lives. Scenes include a man putting on corpse paint (what Black Metal bands put on their faces to look like evil dead people), a woman doing a dance in a bar, and various people reciting Satanic prayers/invocations. There’s seemingly no rhyme or reason between what is shown. The film tries really hard to be edgy and shocking, but most of what follows is incredibly dull or laughable. The Church of Satan is not the boogeyman that your parents warned you about, it’s really corny, mostly middle-aged white people living comfortable middle-class existences who like to dress up in black gowns and makeup from time to time and have the random skull in their living room. Perhaps Cummings is here to show that everything is a joke? If that’s the case, then this film is in really bad taste and really is mean-spirited in a way that isn’t fun, and it doesn’t explain the try-hard moments. There is a wide swath of fascinating characters, but we’re only given the most shallow view of their lives. Ultimately, all we learn is that “Realm of Satan,” much like the Satanic Panic of decades past, is all uninteresting bluster with no real substance.
    • “Did the satanic panic ever go away?” Amber Rawlings, Hunger Magazine, Feb 2024: Starring Nicholas Cage, Longlegs will mark Oz Perkins’ fourth time in the director’s chair. Someone at a recent test screening of Longlegs described it as “deeply steeped in the satanic panic”. The notion of the satanic panic was formally birthed with the publication of Michelle Remembers in 1980, which launched the notion of devil worship into the zeitgeist and led to over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of cult sexual abuse over a fourteen year period. But that was the “olden days” and things have changed… Right? On the one hand, yes. If the eventual release of the West Memphis Three is anything to go by, it’s that the idea of people killing in the name of Satan lost its potency at some point in the 2000s. Sociologist Jean La Fontaine’s study published in 1994 is widely regarded as being what “dealt the death blow” to satanic panic: it found that there was absolutely no evidence to substantiate the high profile claims about systematic abuse–“no bodies, no bones, no bloodstains, nothing”. However, last year it was the music industry that became the target of Satan discourse: Sam Smith’s GRAMMYs performance of his song “Unholy” earned a slew of criticisms from right-wing commentators, with one positioning it as symptomatic of how Hollywood is “infiltrated by Satanic radicals].”  Doja Cat met a similar fate with the music video for her song “Demons.” From the viral video of the woman who believes Monster energy drinks promote Satan to the pervading sense of hysteria that spread after Jimmy Saville’s historic crimes, Satanic Panic never really left. By taking it to the online sphere the claims can be amplified at an alarming rate. Satanic sex abuse was even weaponised as a political play during the 2022 Utah County attorney race. Essentially, it’s a messy web of not only outlandish claims pertaining to devil worship (which is just, let’s face it, religious fundamentalism in a funky new outfit) but everything that falls under the umbrella of extreme right wing politics. If there has been a moment of respite in a satanic panic that refuses to up and leave, it’s those times that our cultural output has managed to take a stand against the whole thing, like the 1996 documentary “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills.” Lately there’s been comedy takes in films like We Summon The Darkness and fiction books like My Best Friend’s Exorcism have shown that written critiques of the phenomenon don’t have to be relegated to the world of true crime. https://hungermag.com/film/the-release-of-longlegs-raises-an-important-question-did-the-satanic-panic-ever-go-away 
  • “A closer look at Russia’s modern-day Satanists,” Alexandra Makhacheva, Insider, March 2024: Shortly before launching invasion of Ukraine, Putin claimed that “the hegemony of the West is Satanism. Such a subversion of faith and traditional values and the suppression of freedom takes on the characteristics of religion in reverse – outright Satanism.” Aping Putin, Kremlin propagandists picked up the term: the often-cited talk show host Vladimir Solovyov asserted that the authorities in Ukraine, the U.S., and Western Europe serve the “prince of darkness” and equated negotiating with Ukraine to “bargaining with Satan.” ro-Kremlin media as heroes, with some “patriotic” mouthpieces going so far as to call them “saints,” “heavenly,” and “God’s army.” However, after the late Wagner leader led an abortive armed rebellion against the Russian military command, the Russian Orthodox clergy suddenly discovered that several of the mercenaries had gravitated towards paganism and Satanism. Meanwhile, plagued with personnel shortages, the Russian military command is releasing murderers, cannibals, and rapists from prisons, promising them pardons in exchange for taking up arms. Meanwhile, actual Satanism is a fairly popular subculture in Russia, with thousands of followers and a century-long history: The first Satanist communities emerged in the Russian Empire in the early 20th century in Saint Petersburg. As researchers Konstantin Kislyuk and Oleg Kucher write in “Religious Studies,” the Russian Satanist George Gurdjieff, who was nicknamed the Prophet of Beelzebub, enjoyed the personal patronage of Nicholas II. In the Soviet Union, the earliest Satanist groups appeared in the early 1970s in Moscow, Leningrad, and Odesa. It is difficult to determine the share of Satanists in the count, because many of them hide. It is even harder considering that Satanism is not a single religion but rather an eclectic collection of beliefs. Even the perception of Satan differs from cult to cult: for some, he is a personal deity and guide in the world, while others do not see him as a person but rather a philosophy and style of thinking. Some separate Satan from the devil, while others worship demons and dark pagan gods rather than Lucifer himself. Satanists from all over Russia visit each other, discuss ways to communicate with dark matters, or just go to the bar. For the followers of Thelema, a religious movement developed by Aleister Crowley their main principles are “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” and “Love is the law, love under will.” Who are Satanists for the Russian media? Where did the image of Satanists as “enemies of the motherland” come from? Religious scholar Krylov recalls that in the late Soviet Union, the press would also label its domestic opponents “Satanists” in an attempt to stop the spread of Western phenomena — especially when it came to religious movements. Kremlin authorities, along with the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church, are actively working to maintain their authority despite having brought the current hard times on the country through their own actions. That is precisely why they are in need of an abstract but very provocative and threatening image of the enemy. If Russia’s Satanists did not exist, the Kremlin’s spin doctors may have had to invent them. https://theins.ru/en/society/269506 
  • “Satanists’ prayer at Ottawa County Board meeting may cause stir,” John Tunison, MLive, April 2024: When a member of The Satanic Temple of West Michigan says prayer at an Ottawa County board meeting Tuesday, it’s likely to cause a stir. Opponents are calling for a large turnout and asking the public to “be ready to sing praise and worship at any time.” They hope to pack the board room, the foyer and the public space outside the county building. The door was opened for The Satanic Temple of West Michigan to give the Ottawa County board invocation — a staple for many years — when the commission in January adopted a new policy on who can speak. Commissioners changed the policy after a Grand Haven pastor who supports LGBTQ rights filed a lawsuit. He alleged he asked twice to speak in the mid-part of 2023, but wasn’t selected because of his cultural stance. Ottawa County Board Chair Joe Moss denied the allegation and said it was a simple oversight. The new policy allows pastors to speak on a first-come, first-served basis, so long as they contact their district commissioner to get on a list of speakers. When it was announced in March that The Satanic Temple would be a speaker, Moss made a point to say the group had not specifically been invited. TST West Michigan’s spokesperson said his group wanted the chance to speak “because we are people who are active in the community, so this is just kind of just a way that makes sense for us to do our satanic work and contribute to the community as well.” They advised their supporters to not engage with protesters and “respect the freedoms of others who petition or assemble against us.” Moss, in an email to MLive, said he expects the public will be well-mannered at Tuesday’s meeting. “I expect there will be more people than usual, and that people will be respectful. As always, I look forward to hearing from constituents during public comment,” he said. https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2024/04/satanists-prayer-at-ottawa-county-board-meeting-may-cause-stir-but-should-it.html 
  • “Video Wrongly Links Cern to Satanism,” Reuters, April 2024: Old footage of an opening ceremony is being wrongly attributed to CERN to push a groundless conspiracy theory about the European nuclear research centre. Social media posts, shared the video and claimed it demonstrated the particle-physics research centre was linked to Satanism. Longstanding, baseless conspiracy theories have alleged that CERN scientists are trying to “open up a portal to another dimension,” like hell.  But the shared footage is unrelated to CERN, which is situated near Geneva on the French-Swiss border. Instead, it shows the elaborate opening ceremony of the Gotthard Base Tunnel, the world’s longest railway tunnel when it was inaugurated, on June 1, 2016. The tunnel is around 123 miles from CERN. Footage of the Gotthard ceremony is available on YouTube. CERN is home to the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. It aims to better understand two holy grails of physics – dark matter and dark energy. The video footage is unrelated to CERN. https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/old-video-wrongly-linked-cern-push-satanic-conspiracy-theory-2024-04-10/ 
  • “Sacre del Gottardo” is the title; The French word “sacre” can be translated as “rite” or “consecration.”. The ceremony for the project of the century – the Gotthard Base Tunnel – calls for grand gestures, fulfilling pathos, holy earnestness. The word “sacre” also has other associations, such as “sacrifice” or “sacred”. Tunnels are impressive witnesses of human ingenuity and collective performance, but also of curses and ordeals. The tunnels constructed in the Alps in the 19th century were linked to destruction and human drudgery. Many workers paid with their lives. Today’s tunnels continue to show how dangerous it is for humans to battle with the enormous masses of stone. The tunnel builders know about the unpredictability of nature, and the recklessness of their activity. The artistic staging is based on the two meanings of the world “sacre”. Beside the huge, modern machines that eat away at the rock, the little lamp continues to burn at the feet of the statue of Saint Barbara, patron saint of miners. Among people who live and work in the mountains, tales are told of evil mountain goblins, demons and spooky beings. In the third part, the very first trains are approaching their destinations and the spirits are fading away or becoming comical creatures. https://www.alptransit-portal.ch/Storages/User/Meilensteine/Pin_051/Dokumente_051/Gottardo_2016_Booklet_RZ_GzD_0505_ENG_WEB.pdf 
  • Simple reasons, not Satanism, behind the King’s portrait, Colby Cosh, National Post, May 2024:  I must say I enjoyed last week’s social media dialogue over Jonathan Yeo’s chaotic new portrait of our King, which the 53-year-old star painter began before his subject came to the throne in September 2022. What I enjoyed especially about it is that it wasn’t easy to predict anyone’s individual reaction based on their politics. My own feed is naturally full of fellow monarchist weirdos, and many of them seem to have liked that the picture itself — made for the hall of London’s Worshipful Company of Drapers — is impressively weird. Others were suspicious, perhaps half-expecting to hear that the overwhelming stormy redness of the portrait was a coded critique of royalty, or perhaps even that there might be mixed-media shenanigans involving literal blood. Yeo  is not really that sort of artist. He is happy to be a well-paid and, frankly, flattering painter of celebrity faces. Whatever you make of the idea of using a monarch butterfly as a visual symbol in a royal portrait, it’s certainly square on the nose, isn’t it? If we cannot escape thoughts of blood, let it be blood as a token of vitalism and heritage rather than violence. Yeo doesn’t care either way. In talking to The Sunday Times he pours friendly scorn on the teeming millions searching for Satanist codes in his work, and explains that the painting got redder as he went along mostly because the King’s Welsh Guards uniform and his glittering medals were bound to dominate the canvas if he didn’t find a practical solution. Also, he likes red. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/colby-cosh-simple-reasons-not-satanism-behind-the-kings-new-all-red-portrait 
  • “MSCS to pay Satanic Temple in After School Satan Club suit,” Lydian Coombs, News 5, July 2024: The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) has reached a settlement on behalf of The Satanic Temple in a federal lawsuit against Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) over “serious” First Amendment violations. The school board has agreed to pay over $15,000. The board will also pay one dollar for nominal damages. The Satanic Temple claims that the school district issued “discriminatory rental and security fees” for hosting an After School Satan Club at Chimneyrock Elementary School. FFRF alleges that MSCS attempted to thwart The Satanic Temple’s efforts to begin the club rather than allowing it to rent school facilities on the same terms as other nonprofit organizations like the Christian Good News Club. FFRF also claims that the district “refused” to adequately communicate with the Temple, canceled the club’s reservations, and treated members of the club as second-class citizens. MSCS agreed the Temple is subject to the same rules and requirements as other nonprofit organizations seeking to rent or use the school’s facilities and vowed not to hold any more press conferences about the club. FFRF, a national state/church watchdog with 40,000 members, sent three complaint letters to the district in response to the “deeply concerning and discriminatory remarks,” urging the district to abide by the First Amendment and allow the Temple to rent facilities in accordance with the district’s own written policies. In response, FFRF claims the district assessed a “special security fee” of over $2,000 against the group, fees that other organizations meeting regularly at the school were never charged. On January 10, the first After School Satan Club was held at Chimneyrock Elementary. Various district administrators, school board members and members of the clergy stood at the entrance of the building, protesting the club’s launch. “We’re glad the district has mutually resolved this case,” says Patrick Elliott, FFRF’s legal director. “This settlement should send a message to public schools that the First Amendment applies to all, including minority groups.” https://www.actionnews5.com/2024/07/18/mscs-pay-satanic-temple-15k-following-settlement-after-school-satan-club-discrimination-suit/ 
  • “Idaho sheriff’s office post about sex offender irks Satanists,” Carolyn Komatsoulis, Idaho Statesman, July 2024: The Valley County Sheriff’s Office included an intriguing detail recently when it announced that a suspect pleaded guilty to possessing or accessing sexually exploitative material of a child; The 22-year-old man was “a member of the Idaho chapter of The Satanic Temple.” Groups such as the Idaho Liberty Dogs and other far-right websites jumped on the tidbit, posting photos of Idaho Satanists on social media. Others questioned whether the mention was necessary or even accurate. The Satanic Temple of Idaho declined to comment other than to say that the man had not requested congregation membership and that many people claim to be members but haven’t taken any steps to do so. Satanic Idaho [a separate organization] co-facilitator Rowan Astra was disappointed with authorities’ decision to post the information. “What is the relevance?” Astra said. “Every major Satanic practice has something in regards to not hurting children.” So why did Valley County include this detail? The McCall man could receive 12 years in prison, according to a plea agreement. Steve Gorski, the detective on the case, said the man had a membership card with his name on it. The membership cards are available for purchase on the Satanic Temple’s website for $35, and the check-out process does not appear to ask the purchaser whether they are actually a member. Gorski said he had not tried to see what it took to get such a card. “I’m kind of taking him at his word.” There is no investigation into the Satanic Temple or that religion, the detective said. Regarding the Sheriff’s Office social media post, Gorski said, “I think it’s a way for groups to internally police themselves. They’re in a unique position to come across troubled individuals before they reach the level where law enforcement gets involved. That goes for just about any group, any religion.” A review of the Valley County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page shows that authorities have not included anyone else’s religion in incident press releases this year. “ https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/crime/article289748209.html
  • “The LDS Satan just ain’t what he used to be,” Jana Riess, Salt Lake Tribune, July 2024: Mormon Satan used to command worlds and control a third of the host of heaven. Latter-day Saint theology, both official and unofficial, credited him with having power over the water, possessing people’s souls and bodies and marshaling demons and other foul spirits to carry out his will. Now he’s become that voice of chronic self-doubt in your head, telling you that you’re not good enough, and, hey, you really ought to eat that second brownie. Recent emphases from leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints show Satan as the great and terrible spoiler of … self-improvement projects. The adversary now exists to bring individual adversity. In fact, he will tailor-make such adversity for each person. To be fair, there’s always been a partial focus on Satan as an individual tempter. It’s in the foundations of the Mormon story, since a young Joseph Smith reported being attacked by Satan in the “First Vision.” The difference is that in the past, Satan was depicted as both an individual tempter AND a cosmic force that could control nature and bring down nations. Today, not so much. What’s particularly fascinating about this domestication is that it comes from some people who would be the first to insist Satan is real, and who would view denying that reality as a dangerous path. When he does venture into wider social issues, those issues are — surprise, surprise — the same ones church leaders are also concerned about in this particular cultural moment, especially gender identity and the weakening of social commitments to marriage and childbearing. What a sad and sorry downfall Satan has had. Let’s all take a moment to extend the guy some sympathy. He’s the one sitting over there at the French café wrestling with the kind of ennui that it’s now his sole raison d’être to inflict upon you. He could have been a contender. https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2024/07/24/lds-leaders-have-changed-how-they/  t
  • “Court rejects Satanic challenge to Boston,” reuters, August 2024: A federal appeals court has rejected a challenge by the Satanic Temple to Boston’s custom of inviting religious leaders to start of city council meetings, a practice it challenged after it was refused an opportunity to participate. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday held that councilors based invites on speakers’ contributions to the local community. Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch said councilors had invited speakers of various religious faiths, not just Christianity, based on their work in their districts. She cautioned, though, that since invitations to deliver invocations were designed to politically benefit incumbent city councilors, it could in the future be deemed unconstitutional if councilors begin favoring only speakers representing religious electoral majorities. The Satanic Temple’s attorney said the ruling was “a gift to every would-be theocrat throughout the United States.” At issue in its lawsuit is a long-standing custom dating back to the 1800s in which city councilors in Boston invite a member of the public, often clergy, to speak before the start of its weekly meetings. Before the Satanic Temple first sought in 2016 to deliver an invocation, the speakers over a one-year period had been 94% Christian and 6% Jewish. The Satanic Temple said councilors had refused since 2016 to extend an invitation to one of its members. The Satanic Temple sued in 2021, arguing the practice violated the Establishment Clause. A judge dismissed the case, prompting the appeal. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/couttrt-rejects-satanic-temples-challenge-boston-council-prayer-custom-2024-08-07/ 
  • “St. Petersburg Court Finds Anti-Russian Conspiracy in Satanic Bible” MASSIMO INTROVIGNE, Bitter Winter Magazine, September 2024: It is a pity that Russians no longer study Marx. He would have taught them that history often repeats itself as farce. The state-owned domestic news agency RIA informs us that on September 3 “The Satanic Bible” of Anton Szandor LaVey, the deceased leader of the Church of Satan, was added to the list of banned books by the St. Petersburg City Court. The court accepted a Deputy Prosecutor’s claim that “According to the experts’ conclusions, the text of the book is based on the ideas of destruction, hatred and violence and the rejection of values ​​traditional for Russian society, as well as propaganda aimed at forming a negative attitude towards confessions traditional for Russia.” The judge also believes that one of the aims of the book is the “propaganda of the LGBT movement.” When LaVey published “The Satanic Bible” in 1969, his aim was certainly not to produce anti-Russian propaganda; and while in the “Satanic Sex” explained that Satanism approves of all forms of sexual relations between consenting adults, “propaganda for the LGBT movement” was not a main theme of the book either. Strictly speaking, the main theme of “The Satanic Bible” was not even Satan-worship. It seems that the “experts” consulted by the St. Petersburg Court are related to the Russian anti-cultists who have insisted for years on the ridiculous theory that LaVey’s Church of Satan and the CIA cooperate in anti-Russian ventures. In 2022, even an Assistant Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation proposed the preposterous claim that LaVey’s Church of Satan was working with the Ukrainian government and that Ukraine  was in need of “desatanization.” https://bitterwinter.org/st-petersburg-court-finds-an-anti-russian-conspiracy-in-laveys-the-satanic-bible/ 
  • “Making sense of the Church of Satan’s founder,” Regina Munch, Commonweal Magazine, October 2024: In the Year of Our Lord 2004, in the Borders bookstore at the local mall, I picked up Anton LaVey’s The Satanic Bible. I was thirteen, and I bet the pentagram on the cover would upset my mom. I put The Satanic Bible back on the shelf after a couple chapters. In Born with a Tail: The Devilish Life and Wicked Times of Anton Szandor LaVey, journalist Doug Brod catalogs how LaVey became the public face of a movement that rejected Christianity and asserted a combination of epicureanism, Nietzschean nihilism, and social Darwinism, occasionally bordering on fascism. It wasn’t always clear if he ever crossed the line into believing his own bullshit, but once in a while, as he pronounced on the hypocrisies of Christians, he could make a halfway decent point. It is unlikely that he was born with a tail as he claimed throughout his life; he loved to read horror classics like Dracula and Frankenstein as well as pulp magazines. The picture that emerges is of a kid who was bored with life from an early age. He dropped out of high school during his junior year, playing the organ at tent revivals and eventually joining the circus. He set up a loose collection of local churches throughout the country, what he called “grottoes.” He would lead the church members, mostly white professionals, in over-the-top rituals and sacrilegious sex acts. One gets the sense that he was making it up as he went—doing and saying whatever he thought would be most titillating and outrageous. Once, when a reporter pushed him on the nature of evil, LaVey replied, “Look, I’m just trying to make the rent.” For all the raucous blasphemy, the group was still beholden to Christian imagery. It’s offensive in the way that a teenager might try to offend. LaVey alchemized the attention into a slot on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He was profiled by magazines and invited onto other talk shows. LaVey was thrilled at the release of Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, a film that he praised for “presenting Satanism as something that existed among ordinary people.” He claimed to have been the actor behind the devil’s mask—one more item on his résumé that didn’t add up. Brod’s narrative illustrates that, more than anything, LaVey seemed to love talking with people about whatever he was reading that week. He frequently gave talks and hosted conversations about all kinds of kooky things—ghosts and hauntings, funereal practices, human sacrifice, love potions, cryptozoology, sadomasochism, what shapes were the most accursed (the trapezoid, obviously). It was this genuine curiosity and openness—even when it was mixed with opportunism—that comes out in the interviews Brod conducted, Years later—the era of zines, grunge, and the skinhead culture that sometimes came with them—LaVey found a new crowd of admirers: He kept a swastika and a Confederate flag in the Black House for their symbolic “power and aggression” and couldn’t resist “wandering into you-gotta-hand-it-to-Hitler territory.” LaVey died suddenly on October 29, 1997; his estranged daughter, who founded a rival church, claimed to have put a curse on him. With no charismatic leader to shepherd the flock, church activity soon stalled. Today, the Church of Satan mostly exists online, but it has inspired offshoots. LaVey was a man who at bottom wanted his friends to come over so they could fire up the organ and talk about weird shit. That’s the LaVey—totally ridiculous, totally confident—that keeps the rubes coming back. https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/born-tail tt
  • “Satanic Verses ban lifted,” Reuters, Nov 2024: India’s three-decade ban on Salman Rushdie’s controversial book “The Satanic Verses” has effectively been lifted after a court said the government was unable to produce the notification that imposed the ban. The India-born British author’s novel was banned in 1988 after some Muslims viewed it as blasphemous. India’s government told the Delhi High Court that the import ban order “was now untraceable and, therefore could not be produced.” As a result, the court said it had “no other option except to presume that no such notification exists.” “The ban has been lifted as of Nov. 5,” said a lawyer for the petitioner Sandipan Khan. Khan’s plea said he approached the court after being told at bookstores that the novel could not be sold or imported in India and then when he searched, he could not find the official import ban order on government websites. “In fact the purported author of the notification has also shown his helplessness in producing a copy,” the Nov. 5 order noted, referring to the customs department official who drafted the order. Rushdie’s novel ran into a global controversy shortly after its publication, as some Muslims saw passages about Prophet Muhammad as blasphemous. It set off violent demonstrations and book burnings. In 1989, Iran’s then-supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a  religious edict calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie, sending the Booker Prize-winning author into hiding for six years. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/salman-rushdie-satanic-verses-ban-lifted-india-rcna179264 
  • “Satanic Temple’s holiday display investigated as hate crime,” CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN, wmur, Dec 2024: A volunteer dressed as an elf rebuilt the statue of Baphomet outside the State House Wednesday after it was vandalized for the second time in as many weeks. The Concord Police Department is preparing to bring criminal mischief charges against a suspect. Police also contacted the Attorney General’s office about the vandalism potentially being a hate crime, Deputy Chief of Police John Thomas said Wednesday. The suspect was detained on Main Street Tuesday evening after a witness reported to police that someone was taking apart the display. The suspect has not been publicly identified. In New Hampshire, a criminal mischief conviction can carry additional penalties if a person is found to have been “substantially motivated to commit the crime because of hostility towards the victim’s religion, race, creed, sexual orientation… national origin, sex, or gender identity.” “The Baphomet displays will keep being made by our artist coalition. If the haters want to continue to play Whac-A-Mole with a public display, we are ready,” said a statement from the Concord Area Artist Coalition for Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion on Wednesday. Members of the coalition have declined interviews because they wish to remain anonymous, citing safety concerns. The statue holds a bouquet of lilacs, the state flower, and an apple in the other. The statue’s presence and approval by the city have made national news. In a statement last week, the city noted that it granted the permit under the legal determination that it had to “ban all holiday displays installed by other groups, or otherwise, to allow it.” Rep. Ellen Read, who contacted The Temple about putting up a display, said she had received death threats because of her involvement. In addition, she said she had been called a “Satan worshipper” and told she would “burn for an eternity in hell.” https://www.wmur.com/article/suspect-vandalism-satanic-temple-display-nh-121824/63227956 

 

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