THE DEATH, THE DEMON AND… WHATEVER by Raymundo Juan Bautista III

Nowadays, many teenagers adore figures and images that resemble the demon or anything related to death and sometimes violence. You can find these images on shirts, posters or even on their online accounts, especially on social networking websites. And sometimes, they also name themselves such as DEaTh666, angelofdeathxxx, the_reaper etc. But why? Did religion failed to prohibit evil worshiping. In this paper I shall deal the problem of occultism in relation with the stage of adolescence. Is this a problem that we should not take for granted? Or is not a problem at all?
On my first work in this paper, I first dealt with the thesis of Repetition. I was thinking that maybe most of the teenagers find it as revolutionary to the traditional way of living and thinking. But I found out the idea of occultism is not the “pull factor” that made the most teenagers like demonic figures. Rather it is the figure itself, the “message” of the images to the youth. I realized it when I saw a t-shirt with a face of Che Guevarra on it. I wonder if that guy is a Communist and he knows who Che Guevarra is because most of my friends who wore Che Guevarra shirts did not really know who he is and are against Communism, they said they just followed the trend of wearing such shirts. With this analogy, I decided to use Semiotics and Jacques Lacan’s philosophy of language (note that the language does not only refer to the text or letters, it can be a picture, a sound etc.) rather than to use the thesis of Repetition.
Hundred years ago, occultism is not a problem among the youth; it is the problem among the adults. I am not saying that there is no adolescent who admire occultism. My point is, most of the occultists are adults because what made them adore occultism is the “doctrine” and not the images only. Catholic Church (you can the roots of occultism in Europe during the Middle Ages) was very strict on occult images and church leaders even ordered the destruction of such images. So, we cannot take the images as the responsible before. But now, occult images are almost everywhere because of the media. Besides there are bands such as KoRN, Slipknot and Disturbed which are occult heavy metal bands. Actually the band Slipknot is now celebrating their 10th Anniversary this month.

According to Lacan, the unconscious is like the language which is structured and has a tension with the ego. It was created by and reflects language for language is the key role for the creation of a picture of one’s self. He calls this stage the mirror stage. Lacan clarifies that mirror stage does not only happen during childhood but it is a permanent structure of subjectivity. It is during the post-mirror stage where the individual’s desire to make his/her own identity remains, hedged about by prohibitions and compromises, into adulthood, and provides the identification with its own logic, language and intentionality. This usually happens during adolescence where the mind gets broad and curious. I strongly believe that the curiosity pushed the teenagers to admire occultism because it is something different from the regular way of life and thinking their parents introduced to them.

Base on my experience when I was still in my younger years, the demonic or death-like images, to me, signifies power. I give myself the impression of being a powerful person, someone who strive for greatness and superiority and indestructible. This is probably the reason why I liked the image of Angel of Death or Kamatayan. All the living things are passive to Death (with the exception to the self styled death, thank you Kuya Mo and Ate Anjoy for clearing this) and there is no way we can escape it though there are efforts of human agency to at least halt Death.. Besides, Death also brings extinction and disability. That is why many fear Death and that is also the reason why many like to be like Death because of its power that no human can escape. But my obsession with Death was not so bad. I did not turned to be homicidal or whatsoever, it is only the image of Death that resembles the abilities I liked most which I adore.
Demonic images also signify power. God, as we know, is Almighty and perfect. To go against such individual really takes a lot of courage, since no one can stand a chance to God. It also signifies violence, which is a theme that most teenage boys like. However, only the occultists themselves are the one who really stood against God and not the people who only take demonic images in order to look cool. My high school classmates also made their online game characters look demonic, since the game was a gun battle. But they are church goers and still have faith on God. I’ve searched on the internet names with people who have demonic names or have a demonic image as their account picture. And they do not look occultist when I saw their personal pictures. They are just bunch of cool dude wannabes and do not live in doctrine of occultism.

In conclusion, the problem of occultism in youth is generally not so bad. But this not a problem that we take for granted because it can lead to other worse problems such as indiscriminate killings because of the obsession to the demon and violence. I can still a case where a kid killed his parents only because he believes that killing signifies strength. Do you think he got his belief from occultism? Probably yes but I’ll never know.


Sources:
Chandler, Daniel. Semiotics: The Basics (2001) London Routledge
Gordon, Irving World history,1994 New York AMSCO School publicatio
Jacques Lacan and the Philosophy of Psychoanalysis(1986) University of Illinois Press
Santrock, John W Adolescence: An Introduction (1993) Brown & Benchmark
Facebook.com, Friendster.com, Youtubecom for online accounts
[1] Anthony Giddens’ “human agency”