The Satanic Temple (TST), a quasi-religious and activist group seeking to spread secularism and strict church-state separation, is experiencing a “mass exit,” according to Diego Córdova and Ryan Cragun of the University of Tampa. In a paper presented at the August meeting of the Association for the Sociology of Religion in Chicago, attended by RW, the researcher noted that the defrocking of a Temple of Satan minister in Canada in 2024 by the group’s founder, Lucien Greaves, set off a backlash from members, protesting that the action struck against TST’s free-thought principles. There has also been rising concern that the leadership is overstepping its boundaries and taking an authoritarian approach. The group’s “SatanCon” gathering was canceled in 2024 when the executive ministry leadership charged that the members were turning against them during the 2023 convention. The ex-members wanted the TST to focus more on social issues rather than legal ones. This major schism in the group has resulted in state chapters, such as ones in Colorado, Minnesota, and Florida, breaking away from the executive ministry.
