Although their group’s name may connote Satan worship and a monthly goat sacrifice, Wesleyan’s Satanist Advocates have other plans in mind. Satanism is in fact distinct from devil worship, and Wesleyan’s Satanist Advocates are connected to neither in the traditional sense. Instead, the group originated out of a desire to play the “devil’s advocate” on campus. Their primary goal is to challenge established opinions and social norms.
“I think our goals are very in tune with the stereotypical Wesleyan attitude,” said Mike Dacey ’06, who is called “His Venerable Commutator” in Wesleyan’s Satanist Advocates parlance. “Specifically, we advocate the opening of minds and the questioning of social norms. We use the term ‘Satanist’ primarily because it carries such strong connotations that only those who are truly willing to question societal norms will even take interest in the club.”
Liberty Thomas McAteer ’06, “The Grand Inquisitor”, stressed that Wesleyan’s Satanist Advocates—the other WSA—always seek to lawfully push the margins of acceptability, and to remain whimsical rather than destructive in tone.
“The WSA is a group of people who revel publicly in their looniness,” the Inquisitor said. “We want to evoke thought through humor”.
According to McAteer, the group is “pre-paradigmatic.”
“We have yet to gel into a hierarchical organization with clear and direct goals,” he said. “We face a battle between shameless self-promotion and sheer laziness.”
This internal conflict helps explain club members’ frequent references to plans rather than past events. The group was conceived just last spring and has a limited budget.
“We didn’t get any money,” said Burke Giordano ’06, “Minister of Propaganda”, the group’s de-facto leader. “Despite the high attendance at the first meeting, the Wesleyan Student Assembly has not given us a budget. Some members of the club are interested in getting a budget and ideally they will be the ones going to get a budget and deciding what to do with the money.”
Members claim that the group is part of a failed attempt concocted by members to get money from the Administration for activities it would not necessarily encourage.
In one such scheme, members put up posters with counterintuitive, attention-grabbing headlines around campus, such as the “End Sobriety Now Fund.” The group hopes to make some sort of statement, remind the Wesleyan community of the bombardment of advertisement we encounter everyday on campus or at least provoke a reaction.
Among the plans the Administration might approve, however, is the group’s intent to produce installation art.
“We are always talking about making installation art that is both whimsical and thought-provoking to place around campus,” McAteer said.
So far, most of Wesleyan’s Satanist Advocates’ activities have been rock shows on campus, Dacey said.
“Rock and roll, as you know, has been characterized frequently as the devil’s music,” Dacey said. “I think this is a good analogy for our club; all enlightened individuals know that rock music is truly a harmless good time and carries no real aspects of any reasonable notion of evil. We all know that evil exists entirely in Iraq, Iran and North Korea.”
Recent meetings suggest that we should anticipate upcoming activities of the Wesleyan Satanist Advocates, including a possible bonfire.
“If anyone has an idea for an event, concert or program that they would like to do in conjunction with the Wesleyan Satanist Advocates, they should email bgiordano@wesleyan.edu,” Giordano said. “And to talk about satanism, they should contact scaevola@gmail.com.”
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