Theistic Satanism: Home > Politics > Support groups > How and why
Building Satanist-friendly self-help/support groups:
A way to help both your fellow Satanists and the larger alternative religion community while helping yourself
by Diane Vera
Copyright © 2004 by Diane Vera. All rights reserved.
- Satanists and the idea of self-help/support groups
- What it takes to run a support group
- Running a Satanist-friendly, alternative-religion-friendly support group
- Making your group friendly to newcomers
- Structure of in-person meetings
- Dealing with lonely/needy people
- How to make your group genuinely helpful and supportive
- Satanists and the idea of self-help/support groups
Most people - even most Satanists, though we don't like to admit it - do have ongoing, difficult problems of one kind or another.
Whatever your problem, consider creating a Satanist-friendly (though not Satanism-specific) peer support group around it, targeted at some larger category of people that includes Satanists. One possible larger category could be people drawn to "dark" imagery, including "dark Pagans," goths, and possibly horror fans. (See Shelter for Darkness, for example.) Another possible larger category could be people of alternative religions, including Pagans, ceremonial magick users, Western Buddhists, and assorted New Agers, among others. (See Pagans and Others who are Abuse Survivors and my own Counter-Evangelism forum, as examples. The Counter-Evangelism email group is more than just a support group per se, but, among other purposes, it does serve as a support group for people coping with pesky fundies in their personal lives.)
By creating a Satanist-friendly self-help/support group, hopefully you'll be able to brainstorm some effective solutions to your problem - or at least better ways to live with it, if your problem truly is intractable. At the same time, you'll also be helping to create a network of people, larger than the Satanist scene itself, who will have a friendly attitude toward at least some kinds of Satanists. And, in the process, you'll make a bunch of new personal friends with whom you'll have important things in common - especially if the group meets offline.
Many Satanists have had the idea that Satanists should be supermen who never need to ask another person - let alone a group of people - for any kind of help or advice. We need to get over this idea. We aren't supermen. By claiming to be supermen, we have succeeded only in attracting a bunch of losers with ego problems. Luckily, not all of us have gotten caught up in Satanist Superman Syndrome.
As humans, we all have both strengths and weaknesses. And our ability to learn from other people is a strength, not a weakness, as long as we don't allow ourselves to become blind followers.
- What it takes to run a support group
Note that you do not need to have solved your problem already in order to start a support group. The whole point of a peer support group is, or should be, to brainstorm solutions together, not to provide a prepackaged program. Of course, a peer support group should be strictly nonprofit. If it meets offline, it should charge only enough money to cover the cost of renting a meeting space plus advertising. (At the very beginning, you would probably just meet in a restaurant rather than rent space.) Alternatively, you might prefer to build a purely online support group, which would be free.
Although it does not require you to have solved your problem already, building a successful support group does require a fairly high level of emotional maturity and people skills. It requires patience, cool-temperedness, an ability to listen, and both empathy and a clear sense of your own personal boundaries.
Alas, most of these qualities are in short supply among Satanists. Many of us are notoriously impulsive, short-sighted, and hot-tempered. Nevertheless, a growing minority of us do have what it takes to launch a successful peer support group. Hopefully this minority will continue to grow.
Running a successful self-help/support group also requires an ability to think deeply and clearly. You don't need to have all the answers, but you do need the ability to ask good questions.
- Running a Satanist-friendly, alternative-religion-friendly support group
A Satanist-friendly, alternative-religion-friendly support group should be run in a religion-neutral manner, not oriented toward any particular alternative religion. Nor should it attempt to create a new kind of ecumenical, least-common-denominator spirituality. It is not possible to encompass everyone from Satanists to Wiccans to Pagan Reconstructionists to New Age Lightworkers all in one big ecumenical spiritual group hug, nor should that be your aim. The group's focus should be on your common problems and on (primarily mundane) ways to solve them, not on spirituality or religion per se. Spirituality and religion can be mentioned where relevant, but with the understanding that spirituality is a very individual thing, and that what works well for one person won't necessarily work well for anyone else.
Above all, even though one of your aims in founding the group in the first place might be to help dispel misconceptions about Satanism, you should not use the group as a platform to talk about Satanism. Lengthy and detailed discussion about anyone's spirituality, including yours, should be considered off-topic. If your group meets in person, answer briefly any questiona about your path and offer to answer any further questions during a social hour after the meeting. If your group meets online, answer questions about Satanism briefly, then give the URL of some good Satanist websites, and then, if the person has further questions, invite the person to join a forum like Theistic-Satanists-and-others or Theistic-Satanists-and-others-2.
Remember, actions speak louder than words. The main thing you need to prove is that you are a reasonable human being who is capable of talking intelligently about possible ways to deal with whatever common problem the group revolves around. This, more than anything you say about Satanism, will go a long way toward dispelling people's misconceptions about Satanism.
Don't come across as pushing Satanism in any way, but don't be closeted about it either. Be at least semi-open about it, but in relatively inconspicuous and un-intrusive ways. If the group meets in person, wear relatively normal-looking clothes plus a small, inconspicuous point-down pentagram necklace. If the group meets online, include the URL of your favorite Satanist website as a "cool link" in your profile or sig. And your group's official description or charter should explicitly mention Satanists as part of a list of various categories of people who are welcome in the group.
Below are some general tips on running a self-help/support group.
- Making your group friendly to newcomers
If you want your group to grow, newcomers must feel that the group is a friendly place. This means that the group must be friendly to newcomers.
In order for a group to be friendly to newcomers, it must have a deliberate policy of being friendly to newcomers. Otherwise, it will naturally tend to become cliquish. Left to their own devices, most people naturally tend to talk to their old friends and ignore most newcomers.
Twelve-step programs have a built-in friendliness mechanism: each member is supposed to sponsor a newcomer, as a key part of the program itself. However, Twelve-step programs are clearly incompatible with nearly all forms of Satanism (and most forms of Paganism too).
So, you'll need some other friendliness mechanism. I would suggest appointing a few people to be a welcoming committee.
If the group meets in person, the welocming committee's job would be to talk to newcomers both before the meeting and at a social after the meeting, with the aim of getting to know them a bit and introducing them to others in the group who are likely to find them interesting for whatever reason (e.g. having a particular hobby in common).
If the group meets only online, or if the group meets in person but also has an online forum, then the welcoming committee would make a point of responding to all posts by newcomers, usually by saying something like "Welcome to this forum. Thanks for joining us," and then asking some clarifying questions about the person's post.
Although friendliness is of vital importance, it's also important not to be too aggressively "friendly." Don't come across like a bunch of cult recruiters or Christian evangelists, or like you're trying to sell something.
- Structure of in-person meetings
If your group meets in person, it is important for the leader to structure the meeting so that everyone has a chance to talk. Otherwise, the meeting will be almost completely dominated by the most glib. As a general rule, the larger the group, the more structure is needed.
The point of hearing from everyone is not just to be nice to everyone, but also to gain insight by hearing about a variety of different people's situations. Indeed, the main point of having a support group in the first place, rather than talking to just one friend or counselor, is to hear what does and does not work for a variety of different people.
In a small group of five or six people meeting in a restaurant, not much structure is needed at all, except that the leader should make a point of trying to draw the quieter folks into conversation, e.g. by looking at them occasionally and saying things like, "Does anyone else have any thoughts about ________ [whatever]?" and then pausing.
There are many different possible ways to structure a larger meeting. One possibility would be to sit in a circle and have a sandwich structure consisting of (1) a series of at least several go-rounds, during which everyone speaks in turn, and (2) having people raise their hands to speak during periods between the go-rounds. For some meetings, there could be an announced topic, with specific predetermined questions to be addressed during each go-round. Other meetings would not have an announced topic but would, instead, ask people to talk briefly about their current concerns during the first go-round, from which the leader would then put together a list of questions to be addressed during subsequent go-rounds.
Not as many go-rounds would be feasible in a large meeting of 40 or more people as in a meeting of 10 to 20 people. In a larger group, one possible way to increase the amount of participation by each member would be to (1) have a go-round of the entire group at the beginning, and then (2) split the group up into several smaller groups, each of which meets in a corner of the room for maybe a half hour to an hour, and then (3) bring the entire larger group together again to hear summaries of what was discussed in the smaller groups, followed by one or two go-rounds of the entire group. Alternatively, you might prefer not to split up into smaller groups but just to have one big meeting with only a few go-rounds, although this gives the group less of a a personal touch.
Depending on the nature of your group and the type of problem it addresses, you might also want to have other types of meetings besides those consisting solely of group discussions. For example, you might want to have at least some meetings that begin with a presentation by one speaker, followed by questions and answers, followed by a brief group discussion. But it would probably be desirable for at least half your meetings to be just group discussions.
- Dealing with lonely/needy people
The point of a support group is not just to have group discussions, but also to make friends with whom you can talk outside the meetings.
You have the right to require that your friendships outside of meetings be mutually beneficial and enjoyable. Some of LaVey's Nine Satanic Statements are applicable here: " ... kindness to those who deserve it, instead of love wasted on ingrates" and " ... responsibility to the responsible, instead of concern for psychic vampires."
Sooner or later, you will doubtless run into some people who are exceptionally needy emotionally. When dealing with such people, it is important to be firm about maintaining your own personal boundaries. For example, don't allow them to guilt-trip you into spending hours and hours talking to them every day (whether in person, on the phone, or in online chat). Strictly limit the amount of time you are willing to spend talking to them, and, when you do talk to them, give top priority to helping them brainstorm ways to improve their social lives so they won't be so dependent on any one person.
Be honest and straightforward about your need, desire, and right to maintain personal boundaries. Don't be nasty about it, but do be clear and firm. Don't just make excuses, and don't just expect the person to take "hints." Don't feed any false expectations that the person may have of you. For example, don't implicitly agree that you really do owe the person several hours of conversation every day, but were unfortunately unable to spare enough time for it today (for the 20th day in a row). I would suggest saying something like, "I do want to help you, but there are lots of other things I want to do too, so I need to limit the time I spend talking to any one person. It will be easier for you and me to be friends if you can find some other people to talk to besides just me. Let's talk about how you can find them."
On the other hand, it is important to be reliable and to keep whatever promises you do make to such a person. If you say that you'll be able to talk to the person at thus-and-such a time, or even that you might be able to talk to the person at thus-and-such a time, he or she will feel devastated if you don't show up. Agree to talk to the person only at times when you're sure you'll be there and available to talk. And, in the event that your plans do need to change, notify the person ASAP. Don't just fail to be there.
- How to make your group genuinely helpful and supportive
When running a support group, the most important things to keep in mind are that everyone is different, and that what works for one person might not work for someone else. Therefore, do not be heavy-handed with the advice-giving. It's good to provide some general guidelines, such as the list of "Actions that help bring healing" on the website of Pagans & Others Who Are Abuse Survivors. But, beyond that, don't give advice without first asking a lot of questions about the person's particular situation.
For example, in the Counter-Evangelism forum, when person X asks for advice on how to respond to fundy spouse/boss/whatever Y, I usually ask lots of questions aout Y. What specific branch of Christianity does Y belong to? What is Y's personality like? How have X and Y interacted on religious matters in the past?
Depending on the nature of your group and the type of problem it addresses, you may need to tread a bit more carefully when asking questions. When asking questions of a very personal nature, it's important to avoid making the person feel pressured to answer. Highly personal questions should always be qualified with something like "Answer only if you feel comfortable talking about this now."
By asking good questions, you not only increase the likelihood that you or others in the group can give worthwhile advice, but you may also help people understand their own situations better and, ideally, help them figure out their own solutions.
It's easier to do this in an online forum than in an in-person group.
Given a sufficiently skilled leader, an in-person group meeting too can be structured to address the immediate problems of individual members, as follows: During the first go-round, people are asked to introduce themselves, say briefly what's on their minds, and say whether they have an immediate pressing problem that they would like the group to address. Hopefully there won't be more than three or four people with immediate pressing problems. The group could then devote between a half hour and an hour to each person's problem, depending on how many have asked for immediate help. (Those who ask for help frequently might be given less time per meeting than those who ask for help less often, on the grounds that most members of the group are already familiar with the situations of those who ask for help often.)
For each person X who has asked for help, X's portion of the meeting could be structured as follows: First, one or two experienced questioners ask X for more information about his or her situation. Then a go-round during which everyone else in the group relates one's own experience with similar situations, or offers suggestions, or asks further questions, or passes if one can't think of anything worthwhile to say. Then X comments on the suggestions and on whether or not they would be suitable for X's situation, and why. Then another go-round of suggestions, further questions, and relevant stories. Then concluding remarks by X.
This kind of individual problem-focussed structure would not be suitable for all types of in-person self-help/support groups, but it might be suitable for some.
However your group is structured, when a person asks for help or otherwise talks about his or her problems, don't respond with pity, and don't respond with platitudes (e.g. "everything will be all right") or know-it-all attitudes. Instead, focus on trying to understand the situation and the person's options.
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