Delaware County Satanists award $666 scholarships to local high schoolers who embody values of 'Outsider Satanism'

Two Delaware County, Pennsylvania students are the recipients of $666 in scholarship money each courtesy of the local Satanic club, Satanic Delco. The award was part of Satanic Delco's "Outsider Achievement Award" program. 

Satanic Delco claims that the awards, to Kennett High School senior Kylie Tracy and Ridley High School senior Adrian Gramatges, are for the students' embodiment of "individualism, empathy, free-thought, and skepticism."

The group lists themselves as an independent Satanic congregation," and writes on their site: "We are Satanists. We're your neighbors. We make your coffee, we teach your kids, and you come to our office when you're sick. We are an independent congregation, with no affiliation to any other Satanic groups." They claim to align with the values of "Outsider Satanism."

Of the Outsider Achievement Award, they say that "High School is a critical, formative part of life for most American teenagers. Countless factors converge to define how that experience impacts each young individual. For some students, sports, academics, and groupthink come naturally. But in the shadows of the Homecoming Royalty, football star, and Most Likely To Succeed, lies the outsider."

The students submitted material for consideration for the award. Gramatges submitted music and an essay while Tracy sent in photography and an essay. The award has been ongoing for four years and encourages students to espouse Satanism through writing and art. 

Applicants, writes Patch, must "choose one of the values of Outsider Satanism and elaborate on what that value means to them, and how it applies to their lives in an essay, poem, film, song, or other creative medium."

Like other groups that espouse Satanism, they claim to not worship Satan. "We don't worship Satan because Satan isn't real," they state. This is a common cry from Satanic groups such as the national Satanic Temple, which has forced school districts to allow them to offer after school programs on school groups for elementary age through high school.

In recent years, Target featured Satanic designs on LGBTQ merchandise for children and in the fight to force public schools to allow boys into girls bathrooms and changing rooms, protesters have chanted "Hail Satan." Satanic groups have also erected statues of Baphomet, a figure representing Satan, at state houses that allow religious displays for Christmas. The Satanic Temple also view abortion as a religious rite.

Noted Quaker John Wilkinson said in 1836: "One of the artifices of Satan is, to induce men to believe that he does not exist: another, perhaps equally fatal, is to make them fancy that he is obliged to stand quietly by, and not to meddle with them, if they get into true silence.

French writer Charles Baudelaire wrote in 1864 about the matter as well. “My dear brethren, do not ever forget, when you hear the progress of lights praised, that the loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that they don’t exist!” he wrote, per an English translation from 1918. Baudelaire was writing the voice of a pastor. 

Satanic Delco claims that "To embody the name Satan means embracing rational inquiry without supernatural or outdated traditions." They claim further that they have the status of a religion despite not believing in a supernatural being because "The figurative representation of Satanism holds just as much meaning for us as the profound convictions we actively advocate for."