Goth Is Not Inherently Satanic

I got harrassed for being a Goth by a stranger professing the grounds of Christianity, and attempting to convert me away from Satanism as reason to berate me. 

Yesterday, I was out busking in town, in relatively Gothic clothes, wearing my red wig, and playing my usual fare of traditional Scottish, Irish and other European folk tunes, and this  middle-aged man who was clearly drunk came up to me, and started going about how I play "mystical stuff that goes back to the 12th century" (a reference to an incoherent comment he'd made about Greensleeves at me several months ago; I'm surprised he'd remembered it, because I had, until that point, forgotten about it) and then started going on about how I "don't have to wear black, and dye your [my] hair red" (I pointed out that I was wearing a wig, but he didn't seem to be listening) and then went on to get into my personal space and loudly and aggressively deride being a Goth as Satanic, and tell me that he's a Christian and that I should, to paraphrase him 'find my Saviour'. I tried my best to explain that Goth has no religious affiliation and that it is simply an aesthetic preference, but he kept insisting that it was indeed Satanic. As he later went on to inform that he'd been an alcoholic, and then "clean for 2 years" but had "done a runner three days ago", I decided that his words and actions were the product of mental illness and addiction, and not to take them to heart. He said he would pray for me, and I thanked him for his prayers. I decided silently that I would pray for him too, for that after 2 years clean and then relapsing, he finds his way back to sobreity, and that he would get the help and support to do so, and find the inner strength too, because I know addiction is a hard battle to fight. Just as he left, two of my Goth friends came up to me, saying they weren't sure whether to intervene, as he had just harrassed them for being Goths too, asking them questions about their religious beliefs and condemning them to Hell for not matching his. 

It was a complex situation, and even though he railed at us and condemned us, his actions were clearly a sign of his own struggles and I could not bring myself to be harsh with him, and he did give me a £5 note, so at least he was generous as well as religiously harrassing (not that giving me money ameliorates bad behaviour, and I do wonder if he thought giving me money was simply a way to get my time). I didn't know what to do about the situation; I felt cornered because busking generally means I have to stand with my back to a wall to avoid being in the way of pedestrians, and although people were walking by, nobody helped me and I could not see any security guards or police, although I did feel that they might just treat him as another obnoxious drunk, when he probably needed more nunaced help than that. 

This got me thinking that it is a common misconception that Goth is synonymous with Satanism, or at least that it is inherently Satanic, and I feel like it would be productive to break down that misconception.

Goth is simply a subculture that is focused on having an appreciation for the morbid, dark and spooky in music, fashion, art and literature; it has no religious affiliation at all, and Goths come from all religions as well as agnostic and atheists. 

That is the short response, but does not really contain any nuance, not does it explain why Goths sometimes use Satanic imagery, or gives any differentiated understanding of how occult themes tie into the Gothic, and as such does little to shed light on how Goth is not Satanic even though it looks like it could be.

Satanic imagery is used within the Gothic subculture for several reasons.

Sometimes Satanic imagery is used for shock value, especially by those who feel constrained by a conservative cultural backdrop and wish to differentiate themselves as other, as part of something taboo, dark and frightening. Often it is teens who do this, and it is not representative of the wearer's/displayer's true religious or spiritual beliefs, but part of a more complicated process of wishing to separate themselves and create their own identity. Often, this is a passing phase - either because all interest in dark and spooky things is a passing phase, or because they mature into somebody more onfident in their identity, rather than identifying themsleves oppositionally to others. Some people carry this behaviour on into adulthood, but usually this is a behaviour that people mature out of. Often, Satanic imagery used for shock value is not used in a way that is coherent with the actual uses of those symbols within Satanism or the occult, and is often mixed up with symbols from other religious and spiritual groups (I have seen the Star of David and Wiccan symbols appropriated into this sort of shock-value pseudo-Satanism, but that is another matter entirely.)

Some Goths actually are Satanists, but they are a minority even within the Goth scene - these people will use Satanic symbols correctly, and tend not to advertise their Satanic affiliations. Most of the actual Satanists I know personally are not Goths; they tend to be more "nerdy" and less into the theatric and ostentatious aesthetics of Goth. Most of the Satanists I have met subscribe to a version of Satanism where Satan is an archetype of independence, hedonism and suchlike, rather than a deliberately Anti-Christian worship of the Devil. I have never met an actual Devil-worshipper, someone who subscribes to a Christian theology and cosmology, but looks towards Hell and the Devil rather than to Heaven and Jesus - I am not saying they do not exist, just that such people must be quite rare, even amongst Gothic and Occult circles.

Sometimes people mistake Neo-Pagan iconography and symbolism for Satanic imagery, for example confusion can arise over the use of pentacles and pentagrams (and their inverted variations), and this is exascerbated by the misuse of these symbols (please read ::this:: article on the 'occult trend' I wrote earlier this year). Neo-Paganism is a religion that has no concept of an adversarial dichotomy, with no Hell or Satan. Some people hold the belief that all things other than their specific religious path are Satanic or at least a distraction or deception from what they see as the truth, but outside of that belief structure, there is little in Neo-Paganism that could mark it as anything Satanic, any more than say, Buddhism or Hinduism; it is a completely different belief system to any of the monotheistic faiths. As Goths often have an interest in the spiritual, and are apt to look outside conventional spirituality for answers, there are quite a few Neo-Pagans within Goth, but again, not all Goths are Neo-Pagans, and not all Neo-Pagans are Goths (quite a few dress very 'mainstream' and others -a significant proportion- are more inclined towards Hippy and 'Bohemian' aesthetics.).

There are some people who feel badly hurt by Christianity, or who see it as a destructive force, and who use Christian symbols and anti-Christian symbols as a critique of Christianity and the power of organised religion; sometimes this falls into the territory of shock-value, and sometimes it is done with more refinement and nuance, but this is not unique to Goth, even though it does exist within the Gothic subculture, nor is it something you have to engage in as a Goth. Goths tend to be people who have been outcast by the traditional community structures, and that can include the Church, and/or people who use Christianity as an excuse to harasss people they disagree with (a bit like the man in my opening paragraphs) - as such, there are probably a greater percentage of Goths who do this than non-Goths. Personally, even as an apostate, I find this sort of thing can often be more harmful and rectionary than productive. I don't think religions should be beyond criticism or critique, but I do think that there ways to go about doing this, and there are ways that are just rude and mean, where the message is lost in the missive.

There are, of course, more than these four contexts, but these are the four most common contexts and reasons for the use of Satanic imagery within the Gothic subculture. Sometimes it is used in the traditional way it was used within Gothic horror; as a symbol for various evils or villainry that a good person can come across, for example.

The use of Satanic imagery is not inherent to Goth - the use of dark imagery is, but not all dark imagery has to come from the cultural/religious context of Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil - there are plenty more traditions to draw from, and a lot of Gothic imagery comes from European folk-tales, sometimes more entwined with Christianity. The imagery of death, decay, transience and similar are part of the human experience, and appear in different ways across all cultures. There is plenty of positive Christian iconography used in Goth as well - but that is a topic for different blog entry entirely (and something I would quite like to write about, and get some of my Christian Goth friends to write guest posts for, but that is for a different time). Not everything dark is Satanic even in a Christian context; the Bible is full of stories about people who had to overcome pain, suffering and violence, and the very concepts of martyrdom and Christ as crucified saviour involve death and sacrifice; not everything that is dark is inherently negative.

Goths are not synonymous with Satanists, we are not a group who worship the Devil or are anti-Christian; we are diverse with diverse perspectives outside of things that are actually Goth (of which specific religious affiliation is not). There are quite a few Goths who are Christians, and there are Goths who are Jewish, Muslim, and members of other monotheistic faiths. There are even Goth priests - check out the ::Priestly Goth Blog:: for example. You cannot tell someone's religion by their subcultural affiliation. 

Side note: if you wish to convert someone to your faith, condemning them and berating them will have the exact opposite effect; you are more likely to drive that person away from the religion you profess than convert them. 

Goth Is Not A 'Hipster' Subculture

I guess this was inevitable with how 'hipster' has become the quirky edge of the mainstream, and how elements of the Goth and Punk aesthetics have been taken up again as visual short-hand for "rebellious" or "edgy", but there are now people who seem to be treating Goth itself as if it is some form of hipsterism. I guess it is because those who appropriate Goth aesthetics and those who are actually Goth are not very visually distinct, combined with how there's an overlap between teenagers using Goth as a means to rebel and be "different" and unique and slightly older hipsters using all sorts of other things for the same ends. 

Aside: I'm not going to say that "Nu-Goth" or "Pastel Goth" are inherently 'hipster', because those things are aesthetics, and many of the people participating in those aesthetics do have a solid grasp on the actual Goth subculture, and are hybridising it rather than just co-opting Goth for a trend. 

Hipsters are apparently people who skim elements from other cultures, who as it was eloquently said on the PBS Ideas Chanel video on Youtube about hipsters, "hipsters enjoy things ironically, and not effusively" that they,"adopt the styles and affects of many cultures, cultures that aren't "theirs", that they don't actually belong to".  Hipsters are inherently appropriative; they seek the cultural capital of other groups, the "authenticity" as a means to make themselves seem more unique, quirky, individual, etc. Hipsters seem to try to buy individuality.

I think this is one of the reasons there has been such a huge outcry over cultural appropriation recently - it is even more infuriating to have people using the trappings of your culture for such purposes if you are part of a minority living in America, Australia, parts of Europe, etc. and have been on the receiving end of discrimination and prejudice because of that culture (or subculture), some of that institutionalised, and now that sort of appropriative outlook has become much more mainstream, whereas 5 to 10 years ago, trends (from what I saw, at least) were a lot more of what Hipsters would call mainstream, and using elements from 'Ethnic' things was seen as a bit "hippie" and weird. 

The Goth aesthetic might have its roots in plenty of pre-existing things (like all art movements) but instead of divorcing meaning, it is primarily built around meaning; ripped fishnets may look nice, but they also connect back to the Punk scene and the early days of Goth and Deathrock, pentagrams are often worn by either practising Pagans or at least people who know of both what they represent in terms of modern-day Neo-Pagan and occult circles and their historical significance, and a lot of avid corset-wearers can tell you more than you thought there was to know about corset history, tight-lacing, boning types, and for the uninitiated, the difference between an under-bust and a waspie... 

Each facet of the Goth aesthetic has behind it a string of connections and interconnections that we, for the most part, understand and care about. It is what ties our aesthetic to the air of morbid curiosity and appreciation for the darker things in life. We don't just look a bit like vampires, a lot of us are very well versed on vampire lore and fiction (for the most part though, WE DON'T THINK WE'RE REALLY VAMPIRES) and there's a reason why raven and bat skulls are more popular than other animal skulls, etc. There's a strong connection to the context, symbolism, inspiration and, for lack of a better term "art history" of our cultural capital. Part of what makes our subculture the way it is that most of us have an interest in that subcultural "art history"; most of us are actively interested in learning about what is behind what we wear, the music, the books, etc. 

I'm not going to say that Goth is not pretentious, as Goth, especially Romantic Goth is inherently a bit pretentious - we KNOW there is a discord between dressing like a vampiric European noble, acting anachronistically and living in the modern world. Some of that is escapism, some of that is a gilded view of the past based in a yearning for a world where doing the old-fashioned things we like in our context is a bit more acceptable, but a lot of that is genuine appreciation and enjoyment of the things we do. It might be pretentious, but at least it is an honest representation of ourselves and our passions; we're aware of those pretensions and take them with humour. 

Symbolism, Fashion Statements, Pentacles & Pentagrams

This is a short post about my personal attitude towards wearing religious, political and philosophical symbols. 

I won't wear any symbol where I do not personally agree with or support what it symbolises. I won't wear rosaries as a fashion statement, nor Soviet gear, nor anything else that isn't something I personally believe in. I see a lot of Goths wearing various religious and political symbols, and sometimes I wonder if some of them might be doing it for what I would see as not the best reasons.

I do this for two main reasons.

The first is that in wearing a symbol you are communicating your support for what it means, that is why the symbols exist in the first place, to represent something and communicate association with what it represents to those who see it. People tend to see someone wearing a symbol and assume it is representative of the wearer's beliefs - it is often assumed that someone wearing a cross, for example, is Christian, or that someone wearing a headscarf is Muslim and not just keeping the wind out of their hair (or part of other religious groups who practice head-covering). I do not want to communicate to others inaccurate or mixed messages. I am Pagan, previously of Wiccan denomination, and do not want people to believe I'm Christian because, simply, it would be an inaccurate assumption. 

Secondly, I do not want to accidentally use somebody's symbol in a way that would cause offence, especially by inadvertently committing blasphemy, or by using a symbol in a context that would be offensive within its originating cultural context. Some things that we in ignorance perceive as mere decorative motifs can be religious or cultural symbols of great significance in their originating context. There are people (mostly Catholic) for whom a rosary is religiously important object, and who find wearing one as a fashion statement to be offensive and trivialising and commercialising the symbols of the faith that is very important to them. 

I also think it is wrong to use symbols in order to look 'cool', 'edgy' or 'shocking'. Doing so hijacks potent symbols, strips them of their intended meaning in the new context, and replaces that meaning with a statement of "look how daring I am!" on behalf of the wearer. Personally, I disagree with using shock value to make statements anyway, but that is not the point here. If you wear Communist symbols or Swastikas, people will  often assume that it is in support of those ideals, and not for shock value anyway, so firstly expect to get some strong negative reactions if you do wear such things, and also realise that in using the symbols of the darkest parts of history in order to appear shocking or make a statement, you are using that symbol outside of its historical context, appealing to its historical context on a superficial level of "evil bad guys" and thus reducing that symbol to a very black and white and simplistic pastiche of a history that ought to be remembered and understood in greater detail with an understanding that history and culture are full of nuances and complications. Yes, the Nazis, Fascist Japan, Communist Russia and Communist China all committed horrific atrocities, but that is not the full summation of 20thC world history or even the summation of those particular periods and regimes. 

☽○☾

A Tangent On Use Of Pagan Symbols

(I hope the Triple Goddess works on your browser)

Another pair of symbols used for shock value are the pentacle or pentagram, as a lot of misguided people believe those symbols to be representative of Satanism, regardless of orientation, or context and regardless of the fact that they are primarily used today by the Wiccan and Pagan community (and that they have a long history with other groups, going back to at least pre-cuniform Mesopotamian pictograms, and are used by other religious groups).  As a Pagan I am opposed to people appropriating the symbols of my religion for shock value, and I would imagine that there are Satanists who also disapprove of people using ignorant portrayals of their religion for shock value, too. 

These symbols have different names and variations in meaning.

As a Pagan, I feel very upset when I see people who mis-use pentagrams and pentacles, and tie them to things such as animal sacrifice, sexual depravity, and other things very alien from actual Paganism. I also feel very upset when I see people wear them to try and be 'spooky' and 'edgy'. I also dislike it when clueless people wear them and claim to be Pagan, yet spout cliches based on negative stereotypes of our religion. Paganism and Witchcraft are not well-accepted religions/spiritualities, and we face real discrimination, mostly from people who really believe we are fringe-crazies who worship evil, sacrifice things, are sexually depraved and altogether immoral - think of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. People have lost their jobs, their children, even their lives because of a misunderstanding of, and prejudice against, our faith, and misappropriating our symbols and using them in ways that reinforce the misunderstanding are thus harmful. So it is appropriative, and it is harmful to use our symbol in this manner. 

Also, and this is a minor aside compared to the point in the previous paragraph, Pagans are a religious minority, there aren't that many of us around, although the concentration in various alternative groups is higher than on average, but even so, many of us wear our Pagan symbols visibly as a sign of solidarity - so that we may identify each other as people of similar faith and feel a little less alone. Some of us get a little bit excited (even if secretly) on spotting someone else wearing a pentacle or Goddess symbol; we think we've found another of our kind, and there's a little bit of frustration and disappointment that can occur when we find out that the person wearing it has no idea what it means. 

☽○☾

I cannot stop people from wearing symbols, and in the end, it is mere clothes, mere fashion, but I think it is important to remember that fashion can convey meaning, and that there repercussions to the display of symbols. I feel that it is important to be understanding - to understand the meaning of the symbols, and to understand how people my perceive them, and to how the people connected to the original context may react. Also remember that one symbol can have more than one meaning, depending on context and culture.