While Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan will always be the most famous organization to bring the Devil into the homes of the masses, the Satanic Temple has definitely proven to be the most effective in recent years. That’s because unlike LaVey’s bombastic, self-centered approach to Satanism, the Temple, who were the focus of the Hulu documentary Hail Satan?, focuses on the core concepts of information, empathy, and logical reasoning. Now, the Satanic Temple have revealed their winners for the 2021 ‘Devil’s Advocate’ Scholarship program, in which promising yet rebellious students receive $666.
According to the program’s web page, this year’s winners are four students “who have extraordinarily shown how compulsory schooling has dampened their creativity and inhibited their potential.” Awarded the scholarship this year were one elementary school student, one middle school student, and two high school students, who all expressed a feeling of hopelessness and exhaustion in the American school system.
“For years, I would be put into a constant schedule that I had to follow and is still something I couldn’t shake off after graduating, I had no will of my own since I felt as of I was being controlled,” wrote Jacqueline from California, one of the two high school winners. “Having to ensure I was on my best behavior, having to mask the symptoms of being neurodivergent, and listen to every order the administrative staff and teachers gave me. Being forced to choose an academic path since they claimed it was the only option and that my true aspirations are meaningless and would never get me anywhere.”
Perhaps most outwardly hardcore is this illustration from Cortney in Pennsylvania, titled, “You’ll Never Make Any Money Doing That:”
While some readers might argue that the Temple is indoctrinating children into a religion of a different color, we can’t help but admit that we wish this scholarship program had existed when we were kids.
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Words by Chris Krovatin
