Observations On The Satanic Temple

Malcolm Jarry

May 26^th 2024

All references are linked at the end of this page.

Introduction

The Executive Ministry is comprised of two people - Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry¹. These are both pseudonyms with Lucien Greaves legal name being Douglas Alexander Misicko. He also uses another pseudonym - Douglas 'Doug' Mesner - at times². Malcolm Jarry's legal name is Cevin Soling³. These two men are the creators of The Satanic Temple and also it's legal owners⁸ as the copyright for The Satanic Temple is held by the for-profit business United Federation of Churches, LLC. This enables TST to operate as both church and for-profit business. Being a church grants them tax-exemption status, being a business allows them to make profit.

There Was A Prophecy I Would Come

In their book The Men Who Would Be King, one-time BBC News Editor/Producer and current US Editor for Monocle, Christopher Lord⁹ and multi award winning Photo Journalist Jon Tonks¹⁰ recount their time reporting on the European and US white men who travel halfway around the world to be worshipped by others:

Why do men dream of being worshipped by people on the other side of the world? It is an old fantasy, going back to the early explorers as imperial powers cast their eyes hungrily around the world. From Captain Cook to Hernan Cortes, they all came back with a peculiar tale that they'd been received as a god by the people they encountered in distant lands.

In Vanuatu, an archipelago nation in the South Pacific, the old dream is still very much alive. The Men Who Would Be King tells the stories of men from Europe and America who go to Vanuatu claiming or believing they are the fulfilment of a prophecy on the islands that says a divine man will one day come from overseas. These are tales as wily as any fiction; the claimant to a tropical throne living in exile in Nice, the American filmmaker wandering between villages handing out necklaces of his own face.¹¹

The American filmmaker referred to in the above synopsis is Malcolm Jarry/Cevin Soling who owns Spectacle Films, who produce:

...experimental short films all of which engage in some of social critique (sic)¹²

Subjects falling under this social critique include trepanation and the drinking of (presumably one's own) urine.

In 2011, Malcolm Jarry uploaded a trailer to IMDB¹³ for a documenatry about him, made by his production company, entitled John Frum, He Will Come about his efforts since 2006 to personally fulfil the prophecy of John Frum, a cargo-cult legend that stated that an American called John Frum (a supposed contraction of 'John From America') would lead the people of Tanna in the South Pacific to a time of riches and plenty.

He was still visiting the South Pacific island chain Tanna is on in 2014 when Tonks and Lord encountered him, where he was still trying to push the idea of himself being John Frum on the island nation for a second try at a documentary, this time entitled Mr Cevin And The Cargo Cult, a trailer for which was released in 2016¹⁴. Malcolm Jarry was still trying to drum up interest in this second stab at a documentary in 2017 but since that time the project seems to have been quietly abandoned.

In their book, Tonks and Lord tell of their first encounter with Malcolm Jarry (who they knew under his legal name of Cevin Soling) on Tanna.

We also met Cevin Soling, a documentary-maker from Boston who for years had brought strange cargo - salad spinners, fishing tackle for people who don't fish, medical equipment - to John Frum believers in Sulphur Bay....[He] even made necklaces with his own face printed on them.

Later;

"I too am following the spirit of John Frum by coming here to strengthen the bonds between America and Tanna," Cevin said, then thanked everybody, clapped nervously and sat back down. There was just a moment of too long silence before the jangly guitar music mercifully resumed.

We couldn't believe what we'd just witnessed — had this American led the chiefs to believe he was, in fact, John Frum?

"Apparently there was a prophecy that I would come," Cevin told me.

"That you would come?"

"That I would bring cargo and this would be part of building a bond between America and Tanna."^{11 (p. 104)}

A few years after running into Malcolm Jarry on Tanna and witnessing his attempts to make himself some sort of god, Tonks and Lord visited him at his home.

Jon and I visited Cevin at home a few years after our first encounter in Vanuatu. He had sent us a rough cut of his documentary, John Frum He Will Come, which had had a mixed reception. "There was some violent backlash and screaming at me when I showed the film in Arkansas,” he told us. “The impulse is to infantalise the tribe and assume I was being exploitative. It was nearly a riot."^{11 (p. 108)}

It's genuinely quite difficult to process all this and what it means about both Malcolm Jarry as a person and TST as an organisation. It seems incredible to me that Malcolm Jarry could ever think it would be approriate to try and make himself the fullfillment of a prophecy made by a cargo-cult. It seems even more inappropriate that he would then decide to make a documentary about it. The whole situation goes so far beyond any realm of decency, even moving past mere crassness. And to be surprised when audiences think the documentary is not merely exploitative but so exploitative that there was nearly a riot is indicative of nothing so much as the ignorant arrogance of a man who clearly believes the world is ordered for his own personal satisfaction. The following extract from Lord/Tonks book illustrates Malcolm Jarry's arrogance perfectly;

Was it worth it? He equated his adventure in derring-do to climbing Everest: "If there was a specific recipe, if the rules were firm and rigid and all you had to do was XYZ then anyone could do it. But it takes someone special to do it, and I actually did it. It makes me exceptional, not divine — except in their context. But only if that's what they decide."^{11 (p. 110)}

The reality for the people of Tanna is quite different than Malcolm Jarry's stupdenous arrogance. Tonks/Lord again:

In the hours after our first encounter with Cevin at Sulphur Bay, Jon and I fulminated about the American in the baseball cap strutting around like God. We expected our shock to be shared by Ketty Napwatt, the Ni-Vanuatu woman from the night before in Hugh's hotel. But she just shrugged, disappointed that we hadn't found a profound cultural experience in Sulphur Bay. "We always have these crackpots showing up," she said, wearily.^{11 (p. 112)}

....

It wasn't so simple; the government regarded him as a troublemaker, and he'd had to pay off local men who took umbrage at his quest...^{11 (p. 109)}

....

As the world rebalances, the legacy of Europe's imperial iniquities is unpacked but old relationships linger on uncomfortably. However well-intentioned Cevin may be, his tale makes the notion of the so-called 'White savior' queasily literal.^{11 (p. 111)}

Like a lot of priveledged, rich men (Jarry's family made a fortune in the contruction and housing industry in New York), Malcolm Jarry apparently thinks of himself as an affluent benefactor, a kind of rich benign dictator. In his adulthood, being able to rely on familial wealth means he has clearly had the time and money with which he can do whatever he wants and what he wants, it seems, is to buy communities of people. He has started and abandoned a career in music and apparently now abandoned a career in niche documentaries, seemingly bored with his John Frum project (but who really knows?) and diverting his parents money in the direction of the TST project. After all, why head all the way to the Pacific when you can have your own pet organisation to control right on your doorstep?

Is Malcolm Jarry a racist? I'm very much of the opinion that quite literally attempting to become a God-King White Saviour makes him one. It's certainly a more subtle, insidious variety of racism than Lucien Greaves open abuse but racism is racism, particularly when its coupled with the particularly nauseating form of US nationalism known as American Exceptionalism - the idea that the US is 'special' and more advanced and enlightened than most other countries and thus deserving of a special reverence and adoration. In a 2007 article about the John Frum prophecy on Tanna¹⁵, Malcolm Jarry/Cevin Soling is quoted:

"This is how far we have to go right now to find a country which loves and respects America," said Cevin Soling.

The irony of Cevin Soling shaking his head in sorrow at how far he's had to travel to find people who love America just before attempting to prove how great American's are by pitching himself as their new God-King is so thick you can almost touch it. But, like a lot of people who consider themselves exceptional individuals from an exceptional country, self-awareness, humility and dignity are in very short supply in Jarry.

An interesting end-piece to the saga of God-King Soling/Jarry - neither documentary (its really just one, but repackaged) is available to view anywhere. I haven't been able to find a copy of either one of them and no Spectacle Productions websites that I've seen make any mention of it at all. If it wasn't for the trailers on IMDB and Lord/Tonks book, the whole thing might never have come out.

Complicated Catholicism

If you've read the piece I wrote about Lucien Greaves, you may recall that I mentioned TST were suing Newsweek following an article they (Newsweek) wrote about a lawsuit TST brought against four former members. To quote myself:

TST have also sued Newsweek (also for defamation) for merely reporting on the situation with Queer Satanic (of the twenty-two statements TST claim were defamtory in the Newsweek article, all but one has been dismissed in a pre-trial hearing)

The remaining statement of the 22 is this line, "accounts of sexual abuse [were] being covered up in ways that were more than anecdotal" which was told to the Newswek reporter who wrote the story by a former TST member (not one of the Queer Satanic foursome).

In a statement submitted as evidence in the defamation case against Newsweek, Malcolm Jarry stated⁴:

General reputational damages. People have cancelled their recurring donations to the Temple because of the article. We received feedback from people that they believe the subject article statement to be true because Newsweek published it. We have also been unfavorably compared to the Catholic Church because of the article statement.

Remediation expenses. To combat the ill effects of the article, I hired a public relations firm and a public relations professional to assess and mitigate damage done to the Temple from the subject article statement. The sum of our remediation expenses was $43,350.

According to an invoice Malcolm Jarry submitted in support of the above statement⁵, one of the PR firms he retained was Levick Strategic Communications.

Richard Levick of Levick Strategic Communications, who died in 2023, was described in his Washington Post obituary⁶ as:

...a prominent Washington crisis communication consultant whose eponymous firm boasts of “fixing the impossible” for foreign governments, companies and high-profile personalities threatened by lawsuits or other calamities...

One of the impossible crises Levick was retained to 'fix' was the pedophilia scandal engulfing the Catholic Church, as he recounts in a 2018 Forbes article⁷.

It's been around 15 years since my firm was retained by an order of the Catholic Church embroiled in a crisis involving charges of pedophilia and cover-up.

It seems odd to me that Malcolm Jarry would submit a legal document listing being compared to the Catholic Church as an example of reputational damage and then retain the services of a 'fixer' PR firm who attempted to help that very same organisation - the Catholic Church - following allegations of institutional pedophilia and cover-up.

It's also striking to note that, when allegations of sexual misconduct hit TST, Malcolm Jarry's choice was to retain a PR firm who have a specialty in helping maintain the reputations of religions very credibly accused of sexual misconduct and then covering it up. Why them? What was Jarry's thought process here? That Levick had defended a religion that definintely had committed sexual misconduct and definitely had covered it up therefore they should be able to do the same for TST?

Much like Lucien Greaves picking a lawyer with very questionable associations to represent TST, Malcolm Jarry seems to have gone out of his way to choose to retain the services of a company so questionable they were OK with defending known pedophiles. And by choosing that particular company to reputation-wash TST hasn't Malcolm Jarry just created the very thing he's suing Newsweek for - an unfavourable association between TST and the Catholic Church?

Malcolm Jarry On Israel

Malcolm Jarry is a secular Jew¹⁶ and Satanist according to an interview with him from The Times Of Israel from 2016 during which he is quoted as saying:

"The false accusations that have been thrown at Jews historically are similar to what some people say about Satanism,"" said Jarry, mentioning accusations of blood libel and — more recently — fabricated allegations that Israel perpetrates genocide against Palestinian children.

"I do not accept when people delegitimize Israel or use lies to marginalize Israel," said Jarry. "I am an unwavering supporter of Israel, so long as it remains democratic, pluralistic, and protects human rights."

I have to wonder if Malcolm Jarry has ever questioned that unwavering support. The United Nations have described Israel of committing 'acts of genocide'¹⁷ during this most recent war and a 2022 US State Department Human Rights report into Israel found that the Israeli government was responsible for 'Significant human rights issues' including:

...credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings; arbitrary or unjust detention, including of Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories; restrictions on Palestinians residing in Jerusalem including arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, family, and home; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and association; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; punishment of family members for alleged offenses by a relative; restrictions on freedom of expression and media including censorship; harassment of nongovernmental organizations; violence against asylum seekers and migrants; violence or threats of violence against Palestinians and members of national, racial, or ethnic minority groups; and labor rights abuses against foreign workers and Palestinian workers.¹⁸

And in June of 2024, the BBC reported¹⁹ that the United Natons have also placed the Israeli military on a list of offenders failing to protect children in the recent Hamas/Israel war:

Thousands of children have been killed in Israel's campaign against Hamas in Gaza, and thousands more are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.

The annual list by the secretary general covers the killing of children in conflict and denial of access to aid and targeting of schools and hospitals. It will be included in a report to be presented to the UN Security Council next week.

Malcolm Jarry's stance on the Hamas/Israeli war has hardened into active opposition to protest groups amongst pro-Palestinain students on several US campuses via the process of taking what he calls 'proactive measures against purveyors of anti-Semitism.' on the website²⁰ of his own²¹ organization called The Alliance for Integrity and Justice. Malcom Jarry classes any opposition to the actions of the Israeli government as antisemitism. In a 2023 version of the website²², the following appears as a list of measures:

Initiate boycott resolutions aimed at corporations that do business with governments that egregiously violate human rights at schools that have approved Israeli boycotts. Not only will this draw attention to students' hypocrisy by going after legitimate targets that also tend to be enemies of Israel, but the excessive use of boycotts diminishes its effectiveness.

Disseminate information and stage protests against Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS), Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and similar hate groups for providing cover for violence against women, child abuse, sex trafficking, and female genital mutilation.

Promote a freeze on alumni donations to schools that do not effectively address anti-Semitic propaganda and the harassment of Jewish students.

Advance legitimate indigenous peoples' movements, such as the Maori of New Zealand, to create strife for duplicitous governments who erroneously condemn Israeli government policy.

This is nothing less than a targetted harrassment campaign against US schools that choose, or whose students choose, to boycott Israel. It is solely designed to use students rights to take action to intimdate their school into ending legitimate protest.

This particular section has now been removed from the live version of the website, presumably as the Israeli governments actions become increasingly difficult to explain away and the claim they are not genocidal in intent is becoming impossible to justify.

Conclusions

Malcolm Jarry is the 'quiet one' of The Satanic Temple. He hardly ever gives interviews and apparently refuses to have his photograph taken under his 'Malcolm Jarry' persona. This near invisibility has led many to assume that he is less problematic than Lucien Greaves but I don't think that's accurate. In a lot of ways he is more problematic. He is certainly richer, smarter and less openly ego driven than Lucien Greaves, much preferring to operate behind the scenes and keeping a much clearer distinction between his Malcolm Jarry persona and his real life Cevin Soling persona.

The Satanic Temple's inner workings are mostly hidden from us, like its finances, but I strongly suspect that Malcolm Jarry has much more control and decision making power than Lucien Greaves. I think that to Jarry, Greaves is his 'useful idiot', able to deflect attention away from him and also there to do all the media jobs that Jarry has no taste (or charisma) for. One of the things I sometimes wonder is at what point Jarry will cast Greaves loose. I'm sure it will happen at some point but not until Jarry has both extracted as much use as possible from Greaves and also has someone ready to step into that role. It also depends on how much Greaves 'has on' Malcolm Jarry of course.

In the meantime, Jarry is the power behind the throne and all we can do is catch glimpses of him through his actions as Cevin Soling.

References For Malcolm Jarry

All reference links accessed in 2024.