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How to Humanist asks life’s questions big and small with the help of brilliant humans along the way.
How to Humanist
Guest: Taylor of the Anti-Bot
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SHAY: Welcome to How to Humanist. It is Shay Leonia, and this is probably one of the most major weeks that we have had at the American Humanist Association, and that is because this is the week of May 2nd. The American Empathy Project is happening. Everyone — a hundred plus different events around the country are going live and everyone is going to be gathering together to perform mutual aid projects for their communities.
This is wild stuff. This is happening. Barrett Paul even announced this on his Instagram page. We finally arrived at the finish line and it's about to happen. People are looking up different events happening near them. If you need to know which event is happening near you, be sure to go to americanempathyproject.org. If you are not finding an event near you, please go ahead and tag us in the comments on Barrett's post, or just DM us on Instagram or shoot us an email, and we will try to figure out what's going on.
Because here's the thing — yes, a hundred events in the grand scheme of the entire country. There very well might not be an event near you. But there are some events that we weren't able to list publicly on the site because they are dealing with very vulnerable communities. So for everyone's protection they weren't listed publicly, but that doesn't mean that you can't get involved with them.
And also, even if you didn't receive a grant, that does not mean that you can't go forward with your own event. If there is an event that you would like to throw on that day, that's on your heart to do on May 2nd, that you want to gather a group of friends and do — you know what you could do? I remember one of my favorite things from when I was a kid. Nick Jr. had this thing — Face, I think — where kids would pledge however many hours they were going to devote to cleaning up their neighborhood. Your parents would call in and pledge for you.
That is something that you would not need any money to do. You get on the horn, get a bunch of your friends together, and have them each promise however long they're going to get out around their community and pick up trash. That does not cost anything. And if you want even more ideas like this, there are even more ideas on americanempathyproject.org that our team has put together.
Shout out to Sage who has put together these project guides. We are so excited. Shout out to Jake and the entire organizing team who has been hard at work putting this together. It's just really, really freaking exciting. This is incredible that this is happening.
Whew. Okay. Now that I'm taking a breather — this episode is gonna be an interesting one because this is gonna be with our friend Taylor of the Anti-Bot. Taylor is a self-proclaimed Satanist, as in yes, Dana Carvey Satan.
As you all know, pivoting real quick — I am a wedding singer and I'm back at work. Wedding gigs are upon us. And a lot of times I find myself at dinner break with the horn section, and the horn section is notorious for discussing their fantasy football leagues and their fantasy baseball leagues and whatnot. And I'm not somebody who speaks a lick of sports. So I finally, after years and years of witnessing them talk about this stuff, I finally said to the guys, hey, what can you tell me? Give me the rundown. What is it about fantasy football? How does this all work? Do you win something?
So they start teaching me about it from top to bottom. And apparently they thought it was hilarious because the first question I asked was, do you get to choose what they wear? I genuinely wanted to know if you get to choose their outfit. That's the most important thing to me.
And as ignorant as that question apparently was, I ten-Xed my ignorance on the interview that you're about to hear with Taylor, who had the patience of a saint. Taylor and I made quite a few religious references throughout — another one we can throw in the coin jar. But yeah, Taylor had the patience of a saint to teach me everything she knows about Satanism. And I was here for it.
I mean, I still feel like after that conversation I am only just 1% smarter, because I have so much more to learn about it. And I want you to stick with the conversation because if you are feeling really confused early on, don't worry. I'm telling you, do not worry. We slow all the way down because I was confused too, and Taylor knew it. I had no qualms about telling Taylor, listen, you are smart and you know things and I need you to slow down for those of us who don't know things.
So anyway, without further ado, let's get into the conversation with Taylor, and I really hope you enjoy this one. Please leave us a comment with any questions you have left over after this episode about Satan.
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SHAY: Oh, you look so nice by the way. It's been so long since I've seen —
TAYLOR: Oh, thank you.
SHAY: It's so great to be in the same virtual room as you right now. How are you doing?
TAYLOR: I'm doing good. It's been pretty busy lately but it's been good busy.
SHAY: Yeah. What's been going on?
TAYLOR: So Drew and I have been working a lot more with the ACA, as you probably know. So we have some really exciting things coming up in the month of May. At the beginning of May we have the Empathy Project with you guys with the AHA. Really excited about that. And then we're also doing a 24/7 livestream fundraiser for the ACA in May as well. So super exciting.
SHAY: You guys are so active and it's really inspiring. Especially because you're young and to see you out and about doing all of this work is so cool.
TAYLOR: Yeah, it's Ben and Maria at the ACA. They're awesome people. They have a lot of energy, and so it's been really great to work with them and add the little bit of energy that I do have towards something that I think is very positive.
SHAY: Yeah. And for anybody that's not aware, tell them what the ACA is.
TAYLOR: The ACA is the Atheist Community of Austin. It's a community center for atheists, or just secular folks in general. Satanists like me. And we do a lot of in-person community type stuff. We have philosophy nights. I've been running religious studies night every month starting this year, and those have been a huge success. Very popular. Our upcoming one is going to be with Dr. Anthony Pinn about humanism, so I'm really —
SHAY: Ooh.
TAYLOR: excited.
SHAY: Again. Oh, I love that because you've partnered with Dr. Anthony Pinn before.
TAYLOR: Yeah. We had an online event with Dr. Pinn on Black Humanism specifically, and yeah, he's — I love him. He's awesome.
SHAY: Yeah. I need to bring him onto the podcast at some point for sure.
TAYLOR: Definitely.
SHAY: So I see you're wearing two necklaces.
TAYLOR: Yes.
SHAY: They look on brand for Satanism? I have no idea. Do they have any specific meaning?
TAYLOR: Yeah. So this top one is actually a crucifix, which is the symbol for the band Ghost.
SHAY: Oh wait. Is that an official thing or is that just the band's thing?
TAYLOR: It's the band's thing. It's like their logo. It's like a crucifix but it's inverted and it has a G for Ghost.
SHAY: Smart.
TAYLOR: And then this is a pentagram with Baphomet on it that I actually got pretty recently from an occult store in Cleveland, Ohio. And this is supposed to be vintage. I don't really know how old it is, but yeah.
SHAY: Sorry, that — an occult store in Cleveland, Ohio.
TAYLOR: Yeah, a lot of occult and witchy stuff in Cleveland. There's this museum that has the collection of Raymond Buckland, who was involved in Wicca. He has a museum of oddities there that I really wanted to go to, but unfortunately we didn't have time. But yeah, there's a lot of cool esoteric witchy stuff in Cleveland, surprisingly.
SHAY: That's so awesome. One of my favorite coffee shops that I try to go to if I'm ever in the area — it's in Kingston, Pennsylvania, right next to Wilkes-Barre. It's about two hours from Philly, and they have the most awesome coffee shop but it's attached to this occult tchotchke shop and all types of stuff. I can't remember the name of it right now, but they do a magic spell over your coffee. I don't think it's like a Harry Potter type of situation, I think it's legit. But I always love getting my coffee from there because they do the little magic spell and it's got like a flame and stuff. They torch your coffee. It's awesome.
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[SHAY interjects: Okay, I found it. It's called Steamy Hollows Coffee Potion, in Kingston, Pennsylvania. They have edible glitter that they put on top of your coffee drink — red, gold, silver, whatever you want. The coffee drinks are really inventive and they can customize them for you. It's just such a cute place. And then they have taxidermy, which I'm not a huge fan of, but it's all interesting tchotchkes in their little shop while they make the drink for you. Very cool place. Make sure you check it out if you're ever in the area.]
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TAYLOR: That sounds amazing. I would love to visit there. There's actually a similar type of coffee shop down here in San Marcos. I can't remember what it's called right now either, but I just went there when I was visiting Texas State a couple weeks ago, and it's like a kind of witchy occult coffee shop, but they also have a museum of haunted objects connected to it. So I toured around and they had a haunted wedding dress that gave me weird vibes. It felt like it was pulling me in a little bit.
SHAY: Wow. Oh my gosh. Alright, so Drew identifies as an atheist humanist, and do you identify as an atheist Satanist?
TAYLOR: Not an atheist, as a Satanist. Yeah. I call myself a non-theist.
SHAY: Non-theist. Okay. So here — I'm so excited to talk to you because I was just going through comments on Alyssa Grenfell's post that she did with us, and there were so many people in the comments like, watch out for the AHA, they're a cult, they have an agenda. And if we are getting that type of response, I can only imagine what people think of Satanists. There are probably a few people that are already turning off the podcast because they're just going to think what they think about Satanism.
TAYLOR: I'm sure. Yeah. That's wild that people are saying that about the AHA. That comes out of left field for me. I don't really know how you guys meet their criteria of a cult.
SHAY: We don't even have a cult leader. Like, I —
TAYLOR: Yeah. What?
SHAY: Okay. I need to learn everything from the beginning from you, because I literally know nothing except, oh, I know Taylor, who's a Satanist.
TAYLOR: Yeah. So where to begin. I think the biggest misconception — and probably what you'll get in the comments — is that Satanists are people who actually believe in and worship the devil. And theistic Satanists are a thing. There are people who call themselves Satanists who believe that the devil is a real entity. They may or may not worship him, but they do believe he's real. I'm not one of those.
I consider myself to be a non-theist, which for me means a lot of different things to different people. But for me, that means that the question of whether or not a God or Satan or the supernatural exists is not a question that I think is important or interesting when it comes to talking about religion. For me, what I think is super interesting about religion is just how it impacts your life. Because whether or not you think those things are real, it's still going to have an impact.
So how I got into Satanism — that started a few years ago. At the time I was referring to myself as an agnostic atheist. But I started learning more about the Satanic Temple. I'm sure that you've heard of the Satanic Temple. They are the largest Satanic organization that's ever existed, basically. I found out about them because Drew started working with Dr. Joseph Laycock, and he's pretty much the expert on TST. He's a scholar, he's written a lot and done a lot of work with TST.
And so I started learning about their style of Satanism. For people that are involved with TST, they draw inspiration from Romantic Satanism, which was a 19th century literary movement where Satan was reinterpreted as a positive figure symbolizing basically rebellion against tyranny. And so for members of TST, they don't believe in Satan, but they see him as a symbol of rebellion — positive rebellion. And they also have their seven fundamental tenets, which emphasize things like justice, empathy, compassion, bodily autonomy, those kinds of things, which I very much resonate with.
I am not a member of TST myself, even though I take a lot of inspiration from them. The reasoning for that is mostly — being a good Satanist, I always want to be very independent and do my own thing, which is typical of a lot of Satanists, as you can imagine. So I'm not a member.
But around the time I started learning about TST, I also stumbled upon Ghost the band.
SHAY: I love that movie.
TAYLOR: Yeah. So I don't know how familiar you or any listeners would be with that band, but basically it's a very theatrical band and they satirize the Catholic Church. The lead singer of the band is basically a demonic anti-pope who's charged with spreading the Satanic message to the world, along with the band. So it's just like a whole theatrical inversion of Christianity, basically. So yeah, it's a lot.
SHAY: Okay. Alright. My brain is — I think what's happening with me in this conversation, because I'm so ignorant to this, is that I'm having like a Rosetta Stone moment where I've grown up with this idea of what Satanism is and what it represents in society's terms. But this is my first time actually learning what it is to someone like you and what it can be and where the misconceptions are. So my brain is having to pause as you're explaining this, and then translate it. And then hearing you say "to be a good Satanist," I'm like, wait, how does that sentence even work? But I'm realizing, oh yeah, I'm projecting my own ideas of what Satanism is.
TAYLOR: Yeah. And I feel like I'm probably throwing a lot of info at you, but —
SHAY: No, but this is really — like even when you asked me if I know what the Satanic Temple is, I thought that was a place. I didn't know it was a whole —
TAYLOR: Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. So to give a little bit more background — the Satanic Temple is headquartered in Salem, Massachusetts, so there is an actual physical location in Salem. They do some rituals there as far as I understand. They have a big statue of Baphomet there. They have a museum there. But that's —
SHAY: What is Baphomet?
TAYLOR: Baphomet is a deity — a completely made up deity, as most deities are. But the Knights Templar were accused of worshiping them back in the 12th century. Basically the king at the time, the King of France, didn't like that the Knights Templar had become so rich, and so he was trying to malign them and dirty their name by accusing them of worshiping this deity called Baphomet.
Eventually Baphomet became associated with occultism, and there was this occultist named Eliphas Lévi who really popularized Baphomet again in the 19th century. And then eventually Baphomet became associated more with Satanism. So Satanists took that deity on as their own. And so when you talk about Satanism, you have the figure of Satan or Lucifer obviously, but then Baphomet is a very prominent figure for a lot of Satanists as well.
SHAY: So that's what's on your necklace, the other one?
TAYLOR: Yep.
SHAY: Okay. So what does Baphomet mean to you? I'm sorry, I know — as much information as you're giving me, I'm asking you a ton of different questions right now.
TAYLOR: No, that's a great question. So for TST, Baphomet symbolizes balance in the universe. And traditionally this was put forward by Eliphas Lévi. For me particularly, what that means is the idea that diversity is something that we should be striving for. The more diversity, the more voices that we have, the more unique perspectives that we have in our communities, the better our communities will be. So that's what Baphomet personally symbolizes to me.
SHAY: Okay. Got it. Alright, so going back to where I initially cut you off — the Satanic Temple is in Salem. What a great location. Salem, Massachusetts. Continue, sorry.
TAYLOR: Yeah, so they do have a physical location. TST was started back in 2012 by two guys — Malcolm Jerry and Lucien Greaves. They founded TST, and basically how it came about was that there was a bill being introduced in Florida that would make Christianity overrepresented in public schools. And so they had this idea of doing a theatrical protest of the bill where they were basically saying, if you let Christianity into our schools, the Satanists are going to come and put Satanism in public schools too.
And so that form of theatrical protest kind of became TST's thing, and that's one of the primary things that they do. So anytime there's like a Ten Commandments bill, or a bill introduced that allows public schools to have their after-school Christian programming for students, TST will come in and say, if you guys are going to do that, then we're going to have our Satanic after-school programs.
So for them it's a religion, but political action is very much combined with that. And so that's the main thing TST does. They have chapters throughout the country that do their own community organizing and more local stuff. But yeah, it's a religion slash political action organization, if that makes sense.
SHAY: Okay. Okay. Yes. I, yeah — my ignorance is really coming through on here, because I adore you and I know what you're about for the most part, and I'm still having such a hard time digesting what I have learned Satanism to be from society, and being like, then why would you want to be a Satanist if there are other — I don't know. I can't even find the question in that. I'm just right now having a hard time digesting it.
TAYLOR: Yeah, that's fair. A lot of people do ask me that question. Like, why do you take on the label of Satanist, something that is so controversial and obviously drums up a lot of emotion from people? And for me, there are various reasons why I choose to take that label.
One of them being I take a lot of inspiration from the Satanic Temple. The other — I've always been drawn to the dark and macabre. I've always been a big horror movie fan, into heavy metal. And heavy metal in general is very laden with Satanic imagery. And so for me, that makes sense, being somebody that's drawn to that stuff already.
The third thing is that I have been accused of being Satanic throughout my life simply for being queer or looking different. Years and years ago, before I called myself publicly a Satanist, there would be people in my comment section or Drew's comment section who would just see my septum ring and say that I am clearly a Satanist because I have a septum ring.
SHAY: I want to be called a Satanist because of my septum ring. I only ever get called a weirdo, but I'm very proudly a weirdo.
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[SHAY interjects: Listening back, I realized that I should probably provide some more information as to why I said this in this interview. The reason is because I have quite a few people commenting on my videos who literally just call me a weirdo. They think they are giving me a good old sock in the gut each time they call me a weirdo for having the piercings and the colored hair and the tattoos and whatnot. And I am so tired and so bored because nobody is being inventive. If only they were even as inventive as to call me a Satanist — I would so love that. And so that's what I meant in the moment.]
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TAYLOR: Wow. So they would call you that and you're like, guess what? I am.
So in that way it's like reclaiming that. I am basically saying, okay, you're calling me that — I might as well be that, and be the best version of that I can be. It's like an act of reclamation, just how the word queer used to be more pejorative, used to be something that was used to malign queer folks. But now that word has been reclaimed by the community as a positive thing. For me, I see it the same way where I've been called Satanist throughout my life for really stupid reasons, to be honest. So I'm going to take on that word for myself and put a positive spin on it and reclaim my power that way.
SHAY: But your positive spin is already what existed within Satanism. Is that accurate?
TAYLOR: So that's hard to say. I would say for TST, obviously they have a positive spin. But there's a saying in the atheist community that there are as many forms of Christianity as there are Christians, and it's really the same with Satanists too. There are as many forms of Satanism as there are Satanists, and what it means to be a Satanist is very specific to the individual Satanist.
There are Satanists who don't put a positive spin on the figure of Satan and instead actually strive to embody evil. They see Satan as the true figure of evil and they try to do evil in their life. So yeah, I would say it's something that existed in Satanism, but not all Satanists would describe themselves that way.
SHAY: That's so interesting, because if you figure that there are bad apples in every group, in every culture — but then to have a group that already has all of this bias around it and all of this prior branding, and then to actually have some bad apples in there, it almost feels more authentic. Right?
TAYLOR: Yeah.
SHAY: Oh my gosh, this is such a trip.
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ANNOUNCER: Sometimes it can feel like there's so much going on in this country that you don't even know where to start. Like no matter what you do, it won't be enough. That's exactly why the American Humanist Association is doing something about it. On May 2nd, the AHA is supporting a hundred community service projects across the country, and this is your invitation to be part of one.
The American Empathy Project is an effort to help everyday Americans push back against our country's crisis of cruelty. It's about meeting your neighbor where they're at and coming together with your community to build habits of connection and compassion. If you're someone who likes to live your values, this is for you.
Head to americanempathyproject.org to find if that's happening near you, or learn how you can support more initiatives like this at the AHA.
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SHAY: I have never had my mind bent in — what has it been, 20 minutes so far? And I am like informed and simultaneously more confused. Okay.
TAYLOR: Yeah, no, that is totally fair. It's —
SHAY: And credit to you because you have so much great information here. So thank you, Taylor.
TAYLOR: Yeah, it's just like putting what Satanism is into one word is extremely difficult to do. So yeah.
SHAY: Is there like fundamentalist Satanism the way there is with other religions?
TAYLOR: No, I wouldn't use the term fundamentalist, because I think that term is really something that is associated with Christian fundamentalism. I would say —
SHAY: I guess like extremism?
TAYLOR: Yeah, there are Satanists that could be considered extremists. There are a number of neo-Nazi Satanic groups. Yes. Yeah. Unfortunately. They're a minority — most Satanists are not neo-Nazi. But there are some people, and scholars think that they might be growing in numbers. But the two that you'll probably hear about if you ever hear about neo-Nazi Satanists are the Order of Nine Angles and Joy of Satan. They're mostly online, so they're not forming in-person communities.
And then back in the nineties, there was a form of extremist Satanism in the Norwegian black metal community. That culminated with — there was this black metal band called Mayhem, which is infamous because one of their members started killing other members of the band. And it was informed by this extremist version of Satanism. It's a whole thing. You should look into Mayhem. I'll have to send you a link to a YouTube video about that band, but it's crazy.
SHAY: Okay. So do you consider that you and Drew are in an interfaith relationship?
TAYLOR: Yeah, I do. Yeah.
SHAY: Really?
TAYLOR: Yeah. I think interfaith in the way that we look at religion and what it means to be religious is probably different than how a lot of people think about it. So I actually consider myself to be religious even though I don't hold any beliefs about the supernatural. And that's because religion doesn't have to be simplified or only seen through the terms of theism and what you believe about the supernatural. It can also be about what you do. It can be about your practice. And because for me, Satanism has a ritual component — I do employ kind of witchcraft-inspired rituals that are attached to Satanism — in that way I see myself as religious. Whereas Drew doesn't, being an atheist. So yeah, I do consider it to be an interfaith relationship.
SHAY: If you were to have a child, would they be Satanist? Like, how does that work for Satanist couples where they're interfaith?
TAYLOR: If Drew and I had a child, they wouldn't be anything. They could be whatever they wanted to be.
SHAY: Fuck yeah. Okay, so you mentioned rituals. What are some of the rituals that you're doing?
TAYLOR: Yeah. So when I first started my practice, I was much more engaged with ritual and would do it a lot more often. Nowadays, especially with how busy I am right now, I'm not doing it as often as I would like. But the main things that I do are very witchcraft and occult inspired. So I'll read tarot cards, burn incense, do spell casting with herbs and that kind of stuff.
And I think when people think of ritual, they think of this long drawn out, very intense multiple-component thing. But for me, that's really not the case. A ritual can be as simple as just burning incense and then reading a tarot card. That is a —
SHAY: I have to tell you, I just came from a Passover Seder with my family, and some of them did the full version of the Haggadah. So yeah, talk about rituals being long and drawn out. Okay, but you said earlier that you don't believe in the supernatural. And I think you know where I'm going next with this question.
TAYLOR: Like, why do it? Yeah.
SHAY: Yeah. I'm trying not to — I hope you're not easily offended because —
TAYLOR: Oh no. I think these are great questions and ones that I get a lot. So ritual can have a lot of benefits even if you don't believe that it's actually doing something in a metaphysical sense. It can be a grounding, or just a way to focus your attention towards a specific thing. It can help you process grief. It can help you bond with other people if you're doing a ritual with other people involved. There's just a lot of emotional benefits to having ritual.
So I think the idea that this can only be employed in a situation where people think it's doing something supernaturally is just really not the case. You could argue that even for people who insist that they don't have any ritual in their life, odds are they probably do have some form of ritual.
For Drew and I, we go on a walk every single day, and that's something that he and I started when we first started dating. So we've been doing this since 2013, basically. And we see that as a ritual. It's something that we do every single day to focus our attention towards each other, and that has a benefit to it.
SHAY: Wow. Oh, there's so much I want to know about this. Where does media and pop culture get Satanism wrong? Because as you're speaking, I'm thinking of like Rosemary's Baby and even Hocus Pocus and stuff like that. Is there anything — and this is gonna sound so insulting — is there anything in there where Satanists are like, yes, representation?
TAYLOR: Usually no. So historically the label of Satanist has been used as a pejorative, mostly by the Christian Church, to demean groups that they thought were going about things in the incorrect way. This was especially true when they would accuse women, or marginalized folks, or just people who didn't fit in with the status quo, of being witches that worship the devil. So historically the label of Satanist has been a pejorative.
And that's even true today in popular media. Demonic, Satanic-themed horror movies are definitely very popular. Movies like The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, The Omen. And they go with the theme of there being this malevolent spirit called the devil who's after people, and we need the church to fight back against it. And so I think that adds to the public's understanding of Satanists as being those who believe that the devil exists and side with him, they side with the side of evil. And that's not the case for the majority of Satanists.
SHAY: Got it. So can you rewind back to the agnostic part? Because I know agnostic can mean many different things. What is the agnostic component for you?
TAYLOR: So I don't really refer to myself as agnostic anymore. There was a time where I called myself an agnostic atheist, and that just meant that I couldn't say with a hundred percent certainty that the supernatural doesn't exist. But I lived my life with that assumption, basically. But now I use the label of non-theist, which basically just means trying to prove or disprove the supernatural is not something that I think about or engage in.
And I think it's maybe a distraction sometimes, because it puts things in this — it almost gives — how do I want to say this? You'll see Christian apologetics, and the point of that is to make discussions revolve around the question of whether or not a God exists, to keep people in the church, basically. And so I feel like sometimes when atheists or secular folks focus too much on that debate, they're almost playing into the hands of the evangelical church and giving them credence. Like it makes them think that question is the most important question to humanity.
Whereas I just don't see things that way. For me, that question is kind of beside the point. We've been arguing about whether or not God exists for forever and we're going to continue arguing about it for forever, and I think that's a distraction from focusing on each other and our community and how we can best serve one another. I don't know if that all makes sense.
SHAY: No, that does. It's really interesting to hear you respond that way because I got into this conversation a little bit with Robert Din on the third episode of this podcast where he was saying, I'm bored by that question. Let's talk about how does your religion instruct you to treat women, to treat gay people, all this kind of stuff. That's where the meat and potatoes should be. And that's so true about —
TAYLOR: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I totally agree with that.
SHAY: Yeah. But you came from — you weren't always a Satanist. You came from a very unique background. Can you share a bit more about that?
TAYLOR: Yeah. I have not always been a Satanist. I grew up in evangelicalism. My parents were actually evangelical missionaries and I lived overseas in Indonesia from the ages of about 11 until I was 18, and then moved back to the States for college.
SHAY: I didn't realize that you lived in Indonesia. Oh my —
TAYLOR: Yeah.
SHAY: Is it like a sore kind of memory for you, or is it still like, oh, I lived in Indonesia?
TAYLOR: I wouldn't say it's a sore memory. I think it's a complicated memory for me, because I think a lot of people, especially now that I identify as a Satanist, assume that I hate everything that I was brought up to believe and that community. And that's not really the case. There were aspects of my upbringing that were very harmful and are things that I'm still trying to work through and deconstruct to this day. But then there are also positives about growing up the way that I did. Most teenagers don't get to have the experience of traveling the world and growing up in a different culture. And I think those things really did make me the person that I am today and widened my view of the world in a way that it wouldn't have if I had just lived in the US for my entire childhood. So I would say it's not a sore topic, it's just very complicated.
SHAY: Okay. So you were evangelical, living in Indonesia on a mission. Was this your parents' mission or was it your mission?
TAYLOR: It was more my parents' mission. But within that culture, within the missionary evangelical mission culture, they do frame it as, yeah, your parents are here because they felt called by God, but God was really calling your entire family. And so there is this pressure to also evangelize within that culture. So it wasn't specifically my mission, but in a way it also felt like that to a certain degree.
SHAY: Were you, I asked Alyssa the same question about being a Mormon — were you quote unquote successful in converting people during that time?
TAYLOR: I wasn't, mostly because I am a very introverted person. I don't like going up to strangers regardless. And so the idea of going up to strangers and asking them to convert to my religion felt awful for me. So I was not very successful doing that.
And my parents were also in a unique situation because I think when you think about missionaries, you often think of preachers going to remote areas of the world to preach the gospel. And there are a lot of missionaries that do that. But my dad was a missionary pilot, so he wasn't preaching directly to the people, but he'd be flying other preachers who would go and preach to the people. So there wasn't direct evangelism. It was more humanitarian focused. So yeah, it was a unique situation.
SHAY: Once that wrapped up, your parents were the ones that decided they wanted to come back to the States?
TAYLOR: So when I moved back to the US at 18, that was for college. And my parents were still overseas when I moved back, and they stayed for a couple more years. They moved back — I can't remember when, it's been years now — but they moved back mostly because my sister had a child and they wanted to be close to their grandchild.
SHAY: Now have you told them that you're a Satanist?
TAYLOR: We haven't had that conversation. Yeah. I told them when I became an atheist, and they were unsurprisingly pretty disappointed by that. I have not had the conversation with them of adopting the label Satanist, although my mom at least watches a lot of my content and I talk about being a Satanist in my content, so she probably knows. But we haven't had that conversation. And kind of how I approach stuff with them is, if they have questions about it, they're free to ask me. But there are certain conversations that I know how they'd answer, and I just don't really bother having that conversation because I know how they're going to answer. It's not gonna be what I want to hear, so what's the point.
SHAY: Yeah. Would you like — because I'm trying to think if my kid came to me and said, I'm a Satanist. I know my knee-jerk reaction would probably be like, oh, that's just a phase. I was a goth in high school too. How do you respond to that type of judgment?
TAYLOR: Yeah, so that is something that I've heard from people in the comments section quite a bit, where people are like, oh, she's just having this delayed angsty teenager phase and wants to rebel for the sake of rebelling. And my answer to that is usually, I've explained at length — I have an entire video on my channel dedicated to talking about why I take on the label of Satanist, and I'm very clear that it goes beyond simple rebellion.
But also I feel like having that angsty teenage phase isn't a bad thing either. I think even for adults, it's important for people to explore different topics, explore different aspects of their personality, and that might look stereotypically like an angsty thing to do, but I think it's just humans exploring the world.
And also, if you take on the label of atheist or even humanist, that itself — you'll have a certain amount of people who will say, oh, you're just being rebellious. You're just taking that label because you're rebelling against the way you grew up. And so I think I don't want people to avoid using labels that they want to use for themselves just because they're afraid of people having certain reactions to it, because you're going to have that reaction when you are your genuine, authentic self and living authentically regardless. And so it doesn't really matter. You might as well just be yourself. And so that's what I choose to do.
SHAY: Amen, for lack of a better term. It's so funny too because if you really think about it — when people accuse one another of just living through a phase, we're all living through a phase. But sometimes you try on a phase and you see if it feels like the most you you've ever felt. I mean, I did the same. I chopped off all my hair. I've had half of my hair shaved, I've been completely bald, I grew it back out, I dyed it blue. And everybody's like, oh, you're just doing that for attention. And I'm like, no. At these different chapters of my life, this is what has felt the most me. So kudos to you for tolerating that as well as you have been.
There's something — and again, referring back to my episode with Alyssa, I had talked to her about the fact that I don't ever see any Black Mormons. I would be hard-pressed to know who was Wiccan or Satanist that I had run into, even less to imagine any Black people that are in the Satanist world. Can you correct me on that or tell me about that?
TAYLOR: I would say I don't know the demographics specifically, but just from my observation, it is very much a white person thing. Maybe not in the sense that only white people can be involved, but historically it's been very white, straight, and male. Especially with the Church of Satan. LaVeyan Satanism is very neoliberal, and so because of that I think you tend to have a higher concentration of white folks.
But I think that's turning, especially with TST. I know that there are a lot of members of TST that are queer or neurodivergent or people of color. So I think, still, a lot of white people are involved, but I think that is changing a little bit.
SHAY: Oh, that's good.
TAYLOR: I think there probably have been historically reasons why it's mostly been white people involved, and I think a lot of that has to do with Satanism being something that more elite people could have been involved with, and that's only really changed recently.
When I think about Romantic Satanism, although Romantic Satanists wouldn't have called themselves Satanists, there was still that strain of viewing Satan in a positive light. That form of Satanism was mostly popular among very well-read, studied, more elite figures in society. And that has been the case even with the Church of Satan, which is the other still-around Satanic organization. That was started in 1966 by Anton LaVey. I'm sure that you've heard that name before.
SHAY: From you.
TAYLOR: Oh, okay. Yeah. So Anton LaVey started the Church of Satan. And within LaVeyan Satanism there is this focus on elitism. It's very neoliberal, it's very much about self-improvement. And I think when you have a religious organization that's focused on those things, that inherently makes it something that is closed off for marginalized folks, or they feel like they can't get involved. TST isn't that way. But historically I think Satanism has had those issues.
SHAY: Got you. Now, you were saying that TST in particular is very pro-diversity. Are they also — like what do gender norms look like? Are they non-existent?
TAYLOR: I think that varies for each Satanist. For me, gender norms or gender roles is not a thing. But even when Drew and I were Christians, we had a very non-traditional type of marriage where we didn't really adhere to gender roles then either. And it's very much more so that way now. So I think for me gender roles isn't necessarily a thing that comes into play, but that might be different for different Satanists.
SHAY: There might still be some people wondering, where does Satanism meet humanism? That's the end of my sentence. I can't even think of how to form this question. Like, where does Satanism end and humanism begin for you?
TAYLOR: I will call myself a Satanic humanist pretty often. And that's because for me, my version of Satanism I see as very humanistic. And humanism — I really like the way Dr. Pinn explains it, where it's about taking the emphasis off of the vertical, like humanity and the spiritual level, and putting it on the horizontal level. And so I see my Satanism as very much on the horizontal level of living, where it's something that's coming from within myself because I feel like it's something that betters my own life and the people around me. And so in that sense I see it as being very humanist.
Also for me, Satanism has a lot to do with politics and feminism and social justice, and those are very humanist ideals as well. And so I see my version of Satanism at least as going very much hand in hand with humanism.
SHAY: Now, is there any part of humanism that you want to de-stigmatize for people, or is it like the appeal of it is also that it is stigmatized?
TAYLOR: I think de-stigmatize might not be the best word. I want people — I think Fish has talked about this a lot, that a lot of people are humanists without even realizing it or recognizing that it's a thing that they can be. And so maybe less de-stigmatize, but more helping people recognize that they already align with humanism. And so this is just a useful label or category that they can place themselves in if they feel like they want to. Maybe just drawing attention to the fact that it's an option to begin with is what I would like to do.
SHAY: Yeah, yeah. It seems like you're already doing such a great job with that with your YouTube channel and your advocacy work. I mean, you are so active and it's such an inspiration to me to see you just out there, especially as someone who hasn't had this official conversation with your parents about being a Satanist, to know that you're still doing your public figure thing online and speaking at conferences and everything. I mean, you are out there, you're doing it.
TAYLOR: Thank you. Yeah. I just try to — it's funny because, like I said, I'm a very introverted person. And so speaking at conferences or leading religious studies nights at the ACA, that's very much something that I struggle with a little bit. The introvert in me struggles with that. But I push myself to do it because I care so much about this and I care about fostering community and educating people and connecting with people. It's weird to think of myself that way, just because if I would've asked myself even five years ago if this would be stuff that I would be doing, I'd be like, hell no. I can't imagine myself doing this.
SHAY: I can relate. That is so cool. Is there anything else that you want anyone to know? I'm so sorry, my Netflix just turned on.
TAYLOR: Oh, no, you're good.
SHAY: Church leadership just right there to council. Oh my gosh. That new Trust Me, I'm the Prophet documentary just came out, so I was about to watch —
TAYLOR: Oh, awesome.
SHAY: Okay. Yeah. So anything else that you wanted to share?
TAYLOR: Yeah, so I talked about this recently. I had an interview with Trevor from Belief It or Not — I'm not sure if you're familiar with that channel. He's also kind of in the atheist niche. Really great channel. I love his videos. You should definitely check it out.
But I was talking to him in an interview about how I want my content to be there for the weirdos. And that's the people that I care about. I care about the people who don't necessarily fit in with society, or they just don't do what we're necessarily told to do. And so I just want to say to those people, if you feel like you're one of the weirdos, there are other people out there that you can connect with — myself being one of those people. And there's content and community for you.
SHAY: Oh, I love that. Thank you, Taylor.
TAYLOR: Of course.
SHAY: I was just so scared of — I'm like, oh gosh, I know I'm going to say something offensive because I don't know anything about this. So I'm just so glad that you were willing to put it all out there.
TAYLOR: And I appreciate your questions because there's just not that much known about Satanism, and so people naturally have these questions about what it means to be a Satanist or what that looks like. So I hope that I helped inform a little bit, even though I'm very purposeful about — I'm not an expert in a lot of ways. I'm still learning about Satanism myself, and there's a lot to learn about it, surprisingly. So maybe I've gotten stuff wrong in my conversation with you. So nobody take what I'm saying as gospel, basically.
SHAY: Oh gosh. We're gonna have to do a drinking game for all of the phrases and stuff that we use that are religious.
TAYLOR: They're just so handy.
SHAY: I know.
TAYLOR: Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much for having —
SHAY: Thank you so much. Of course. All right, I'll talk to you —
TAYLOR: All right.