A group of Christians is pushing back against SatanCon 2023, an event scheduled to take place in downtown Boston that is being touted by The Satanic Temple as the "largest satanic gathering in history."
Detractors say the temple is "using the supernatural" to manipulate people, though it bills itself as a nontheistic group that does not believe in the supernatural.
"We've been tracking these folks for a couple years now," Dave Kubal, CEO of Intercessors for America, told Fox News Digital. His organization of "half a million prayer warriors" takes a three-pronged approach to resisting and exposing The Satanic Temple with "news, prayer and action."
SatanCon 2023, which is scheduled April 28-30 in Boston, marks The Satanic Temple's 10-year anniversary, according to its website. The theme of the gathering is "Hexennacht in Boston," translated from German for "Witches' Night," which marks the ancient pagan holiday of May Eve.
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The Baphomet statue is seen in the conversion room at the Satanic Temple in Salem, Massachusetts, on Oct. 8, 2019. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)
Kubal noted how The Satanic Temple has chosen the locations for their two SatanCon events so far as retribution against politicians who would not allow them to offer satanic invocations at city events.
SatanCon 2023, which will include discussion panels, entertainment, satanic rituals, a satanic wedding chapel and a "satanic marketplace," was dedicated to Democratic Boston Mayor Michelle Wu after the Temple was not allowed to deliver an invocation at Boston City Hall.
The Temple told Fox News Digital it supports the right to protest its event, but dismissed the accusations against it and doubled down on its status as a non-spiritual organization.
The group dedicated its 2022 conference in Scottsdale, Arizona to former Republican Mayor Jim Lane and former Republican Councilor Suzanne Klapp, who also denied a request to invoke Satan at a City Council meeting.
Kubal said his organization fasted and prayed against SatanCon in Scottsdale last year, claiming that the event "fizzled" and "their numbers were very small for all practical purposes." This year, they are taking the same approach, but are also trying to raise awareness that The Satanic Temple is wading into legal battles about abortion in the wake of the Dobbs decision.
The Satanic Temple filed a lawsuit in 2021 after multiple requests to deliver a satanic invocation at Boston City Hall were denied. (jorgeantonio via Getty Images)
Citing its tenet that "one's body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone," The Satanic Temple has filed lawsuits on religious freedom grounds in states that limit abortion, claiming that abortion bans violate the rights of an "involuntarily pregnant woman" to engage in a "Satanic Abortion Ritual."
"I think for the average American, that just kind of makes their skin crawl to think that somebody would abort a baby for religious ritual purposes," Kubal said.
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"So whether or not people believe in satanic power, the people that are a part of this absolutely do, and they attend this conference in an attempt to learn how to manipulate people using the supernatural. They cloak their activities using palatable words emphasizing science, using words like benevolence or justice."
The Salem, Massachusetts-based Satanic Temple, which claims to have more than 1.5 million members worldwide, denies belief in a personal devil, saying its mission is "to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits."
Candles are seen for sale at the Satanic Temple in Salem, Massachusetts, on Oct. 8, 2019. (JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)
John Ramirez, who spoke at an Intercessors for America event last year, is a former occultist whose book "Out of the Devil's Cauldron: A Journey from Darkness to Light" detailed his account of leaving Santería after he was initiated when he was a boy. A mix of Roman Catholic teachings and occult spiritism, Santería emerged in Cuba during the 19th century and was banned in the country for decades.
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Now an evangelist, Ramirez maintained to Fox News Digital that Satanists are messing with real forces despite what they claim, and likened people who do not believe in spiritual warfare to someone who does not believe in gravity before jumping out a window.
"These people are a bunch of jokes because this is how they trap people," Ramirez said of The Satanic Temple and those like them. "I lived in the satanic kingdom for 25 years. I lived in the shadows of the demonic for 25 years. I would talk to Satan all day long, all night long."
John Ramirez, an evangelist who focuses on deliverance ministry after spending two and a half decades as an occultist, said Satanists are messing with real forces despite what they claim. (Courtesy of John Ramirez)
Ramirez claimed that when he was steeped in the occult, he would project his consciousness into the spiritual realm with the intention of cursing entire regions with "the highest levels of witchcraft." Following a supernatural experience during which he said he experienced hell, he became a Christian.
"So these people tell you they're a temple, they're a religion, but they don't serve Satan, which is all hogwash," he said. "They do."
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"These people are a bunch of jokes because this is how they trap people."
"On the front door, they say, 'We call ourselves Satanists, but we don't serve Satan.' But then that's like a Christian saying, 'I'm a Christian, but I don't serve Jesus.' How can you be a Christian not serving Jesus? Either you have one master, or you have the other."
Ramirez claimed Satanists set up temples in various cities "so demons and spirits can work in the atmosphere of those regions to really bring destruction to the people."
The Satanic Temple's statue of Baphomet was based on a drawing by occultist Éliphas Lévi, pictured above, at a museum in Germany. (picture alliance via Getty Images)
Ramirez said the influence of the demonic is becoming increasingly apparent in American culture. "We make Sodom and Gomorrah look like kindergarten," he said. "We are darker by the minute. This society has lost its conscience of right from wrong. We don't even blush anymore."
"Whatever is right in people's eyes, that's what they do," he added.
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"We support people's First Amendment right to engage in prayer and fasting as means of protest," a spokesperson for The Satanic Temple told Fox News Digital. "It is hard to respond to accusations of ‘tapping into demonic power’ in the same way that it is hard to respond to accusations of having ‘cooties’ without implicitly validating the mindset of a 3-year-old."
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