<div dir="ltr"><a href="http://time.com/3972713/detroit-satanic-statue-baphomet/">http://time.com/3972713/detroit-satanic-statue-baphomet/</a><br><br><a class="section-tag" itemprop="articleSection" href="http://time.com/us/">U.S.</a>
<a class="topic-tag" itemprop="articleSection" href="http://time.com/tag/culture/">Culture</a>
<h2 class="article-title" itemprop="headline">Hundreds Gather for Unveiling of Satanic Statue in Detroit</h2>
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<span class="byline"><a itemprop="author" href="http://time.com/author/p-nash-jenkins/">Nash Jenkins</a></span>
<a class="author-twitter" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/pnashjenkins">@pnashjenkins</a>
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July 27, 2015
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<img src="https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/mattanderson5.jpg?quality=65&strip=color&w=814" itemprop="image" alt="">
<span class="credit">Matt Anderson</span>
<span class="caption">The bronze monument was unveiled by the Satanic Temple in Detroit on July 25, 2015</span>
<h2 class="article-excerpt" itemprop="alternativeHeadline"><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">The "largest public satanic ceremony in history" </span></h2>
<p>A little before midnight on Saturday,<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b> a crowd of around 700
gathered in an old industrial warehouse</b></span> a few blocks from the Detroit
River<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b> for </b></span>what they’d been told was <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>the “largest public satanic ceremony
in history.” Most of them professed to be adherents of Satanism,</b></span> that
loosely organized squad of the occult that defines itself as a religious
group. Others came simply because they were curious. After all,
Satanists exist in the popular psyche as those who casually sacrifice
goats and impregnate Mia Farrow with Lucifer’s child; if this ceremony
was indeed unprecedentedly big, who knew what could be in store?</p>
<p>The reality of the event — and of the contemporary Satanic movement at large — was tamer, and, if <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.393930954149229.1073741833.252108578331468&type=3">the Facebook pictures</a>
speak the truth, harmlessly festive: a cross between an underground
rave and a meticulously planned Halloween party. <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>They were there to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/26/us-usa-michigan-satanic-idUSKCN0Q009F20150726">publicly unveil</a>
a colossal bronze statue of Baphomet</b></span>, the goat-headed wraith who, after
centuries of various appropriations, is <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>now the totem of contemporary
Satanism.</b></span> The pentagram, that familiar logo of both orthodox Satanists
and disaffected teens, originated as a rough outline of Baphomet’s head.</p>
<p><span style="line-height:1.5">The statue itself is impressive:
almost nine feet tall, and weighing in at around a ton. The horned idol
sits on a throne adorned with a pentagram, but it is the idol’s wings,
and not his chair, that curiously evoke </span><a style="line-height:1.5" href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Iron_Throne?file=Iron_throne.jpg">the Iron Throne</a><span style="line-height:1.5">
from a certain celebrated HBO fantasy series. He has the jarring horns
of a virile ram but the biceps of a guy who lifts four or five times a
week. His legs, which are crossed, end not in feet but in hooves. It
might seem more menacing if not for the two bronze-statue children
standing on either side of him — a girl on his left; a boy on his right;
both are looking up at him earnestly.</span></p>
<p>“Baphomet contains binary elements symbolizing a reconciliation of
opposites, emblematic of the willingness to embrace, and even celebrate
differences,” Jex Blackmore, who organized the unveiling, told TIME late
Sunday night. In a sense, the statue is a stress test of American
plurality: at what point does religious freedom make the people
uncomfortable?</p><div class="newsletter-shortcode the-brief"><form action="https://ebm.cheetahmail.com/r/regf2" method="post" target="time_brief_popup">
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<p>Blackmore directs the Detroit chapter of the Satanic Temple, one of
the few coherent organizations in a field that’s otherwise disorganized
and dogmatically nebulous. The Satanic Temple has chapters in Florida
and Finland, in Italy and Minneapolis. Its headquarters are in New York,
but the Detroit office is its first and largest outpost. Blackmore —
who, by the way, uses a pseudonym for safety reasons — grew up in the
Detroit metropolitan area and returned to the city to work with the
Satanic Temple after attending a lecture on Satanism at Harvard.</p>
<p class="p1"><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>Asked whether her group is a religious organization (or
rather an anti-religious organization) she explains that it’s less of a
church and more of an affinity group, built around what she repeatedly
refers to as “Satanic principles.</b></span>” It’s not the dogma you might expect.
To quote from the group’s website:</p>
<p><em>T<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>he Satanic Temple holds to the basic premise that undue
suffering is bad, and that which reduces suffering is good. We do not
believe in symbolic “evil.”</b></span></em></p>
<p>Most vitally, though, the group does not “promote a belief in a
personal Satan.” <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>By their logic, Satan is an abstraction</b></span>, or, as Nancy
Kaffer <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/17/can-the-satanic-temple-save-america.html">wrote for </a><em><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/17/can-the-satanic-temple-save-america.html">The Daily Beast</a> </em>last
year, “a literary figure, not a deity — <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>he stands for rationality, for
skepticism, for speaking truth to power, even at great personal cost.”</b></span></p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>Call it Libertarian Gothic, maybe </b></span>— some darker permutation of Ayn
Rand’s crusade<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b> for free will.</b></span> One witnesses in the Satanic Temple
militia <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>a certain knee-jerk reaction to encroachments upon personal
liberties, especially when those encroachments come with a crucifix in
hand. </b></span>The Baphomet statue is the Satanic Temple’s defiant retort <em>du jour. </em></p>
<p>“We chose Baphomet because of its contemporary relation to the figure
of Satan and find its symbolism to be appropriate if displayed
alongside a monument representing another faith,” Blackmore said.</p>
<p>The monument she refers to is a six-foot marble slab engraved with
the Ten Commandments, controversially situated on the grounds of the
Oklahoma State Capitol. In 2012, state representative Mike Ritze fronted
$10,000 out of his own pocket to have the marker installed in the
shadow of the capitol’s dome, prompting the ire of those who believed it
flagrantly violated the separation of church and state. The American
Civil Liberties Union sued the state of Oklahoma; the Satanic Temple
fought fire with fire. If the Christians could chisel their credo onto
public property, the argument went, why couldn’t they?</p>
<p>The state didn’t agree, and rejected the Satanic Temple’s petition to
place Baphomet’s statute on legislative property. The point is now
moot, though: <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>a month ago, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that <span style="background-color:rgb(255,229,153)">the Ten
Commandments monument</span> violated the state constitution, a judgment that
will probably stick in spite of <span style="background-color:rgb(255,229,153)"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/07/oklahoma-ten-commandments_n_7747278.html">an obstinate governor.</a></span></b></span></p>
<p>It seems there are battles left to fight, though. A Detroit pastor
described the unveiling of the statue as “a welcome home party for
evil.” A Catholic activism group in the city actively encouraged people
to attend mass at a local cathedral to speak out against the statue — a
pray-in, if you will. Meanwhile, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson
recently signed a bill that will put the Ten Commandments on a similar
monument on the grounds of the State Capitol in Little Rock. The Satanic
Temple may be planning a road trip.</p><br></div>