Satanism and Black Metal: History, Ideology and Controversy

Black metal is an extreme form of heavy metal that emerged in the 1980s and made Satan, darkness and anti-Christian rebellion its central themes. For most early bands Satanism was imagery and provocation, but in Norway in the early 1990s a small scene turned rhetoric into church arson and murder, and in Sweden some musicians later embraced an explicitly theistic "anti-cosmic" Satanism. The relationship between the music and religious Satanism is therefore varied, contested and a subject of serious scholarly study.

Heavy Metal and the Occult: Precursors§

From its beginnings heavy metal drew on the imagery of horror and the occult. Black Sabbath, formed in Birmingham in 1968, took its name from a horror film and opened its first album (1970) with a song about a dark figure; Led Zeppelin's guitarist Jimmy Page collected the works of Aleister Crowley and bought his former house at Loch Ness. These bands were not Satanists, but they established the occult as part of the genre's aesthetic.

The Church of Satan, founded in 1966 and described in LaVeyan Satanism and the Church of Satan, provided a second source. Its emblem, the goat's head in an inverted pentagram, and the provocative language of The Satanic Bible (1969) circulated widely in youth culture. During the 1980s critics of heavy metal, from parents' groups to Christian broadcasters, claimed that its lyrics encouraged devil worship and suicide, a theme that fed directly into the Satanic Panic. The bands' own Satanism was usually far less systematic than their critics imagined.

The First Wave: Venom, Bathory and Mercyful Fate§

The name "black metal" comes from Black Metal (1982), the second album of the Newcastle band Venom. Venom combined fast, crude playing with lyrics about Satan and hell, and its members later said openly that the Satanism was theatre. Their influence lay in the attitude: the idea that metal could be deliberately evil, ugly and offensive.

In Sweden the project Bathory, led by the musician known as Quorthon, released its first album in 1984, establishing a cold, raw sound and imagery of darkness and death; later Bathory albums turned to Viking themes and so anticipated a shift in the whole genre. In Switzerland Hellhammer and its successor Celtic Frost explored similar territory. In Denmark Mercyful Fate, fronted by King Diamond, was unusual in that its singer spoke positively of LaVey's philosophy in interviews and presented his Satanism as a personal outlook rather than a pose. These groups are often called the "first wave" of black metal.

Norway 1991–1994: Helvete, Arson and Murder§

The genre's notoriety comes from a small group of young musicians in Norway in the early 1990s. Its centre was Øystein Aarseth (1968–1993), known as Euronymous, guitarist of the band Mayhem, who ran a record label and, from 1991, a shop in Oslo called Helvete ("Hell"). Around him gathered members of bands such as Burzum, Emperor and Darkthrone, who shared a hostility to commercial death metal and a cultivated image of evil. In April 1991 Mayhem's singer, Per Yngve Ohlin, known as Dead, took his own life, an event that the scene treated with disturbing fascination.

From June 1992 a series of arson attacks struck Norwegian churches, beginning with the medieval Fantoft stave church near Bergen. Several attacks were linked to members of the scene, and dozens of church fires in the following years were investigated, although not all were connected to black metal. In 1992 Bård Eithun, Emperor's drummer, killed a man in Lillehammer and was later convicted of murder. In August 1993 Kristian (Varg) Vikernes of Burzum killed Aarseth in Oslo; in 1994 he was convicted of the murder and of several church arsons and sentenced to 21 years, the maximum term, and he was released on parole in 2009.

These crimes produced intense media coverage in Norway and abroad. Newspapers spoke of a Satanic underground, a framing that some members encouraged in interviews. Scholars have pointed out that the scene was tiny and that most of its rhetoric was aimed at shock; its violence was real, but it was not the work of an organised Satanic religion.

Satan, Odin and the Turn to Heathenism§

The religious ideas of the Norwegian scene were inconsistent. Aarseth described himself in interviews as a devil worshipper who embraced evil for its own sake, a position closer to the Satan of Christian imagination than to any Satanist organisation; it is unclear how far this was sincere and how far provocation. He despised the Church of Satan as too humane and individualistic.

Others moved quickly in a different direction. Vikernes rejected Satanism as a product of Christianity and turned to Norse paganism, combined with nationalist and racist ideas; several other musicians likewise exchanged Satanic imagery for themes from Norse mythology. Kennet Granholm and other scholars describe this as a shift from anti-Christian Satanism to anti-Christian heathenism, in which the church fires were reinterpreted as revenge for the Christianisation of Norway. The diversity of contemporary Norse religion, most of which rejects racism, is described in Heathenry and Runes and Norse and Germanic Religion.

The early 1990s also saw contacts between parts of the extreme-metal underground and far-right or occult-fascist milieus, including the Order of Nine Angles. Such links involved a minority, but they have shaped scholarly and journalistic debate about the genre ever since.

Anti-Cosmic Satanism and Orthodox Black Metal§

A more developed theistic Satanism emerged in Sweden. Around 1995 a group called the Misanthropic Luciferian Order (later the Temple of the Black Light) was formed in Gothenburg; Jon Nödtveidt (1975–2006), singer of the band Dissection, was closely associated with it. The group taught what it called anti-cosmic or chaos-gnostic Satanism. In its theology the ordered cosmos is a prison created by a lesser god, much like the demiurge of ancient Gnosticism, and Satan and the forces of chaos are liberators who seek to dissolve creation and return to a boundless, acausal state. The group drew on Gnostic, Kabbalistic and Typhonian material and set out its doctrine in a book published in 2002.

In 1997 Nödtveidt was convicted as an accessory to the killing of a man in Gothenburg; he served a prison sentence and later took his own life in 2006. Despite this history, the anti-cosmic current influenced a wave of bands in the 2000s, sometimes called "orthodox black metal", whose lyrics engage closely with theology. Some musicians in this milieu, including members of the Swedish band Watain, have described their music as an expression of genuine Satanic faith rather than entertainment, which distinguishes them from the theatrical Satanism of earlier bands. These developments are placed in context in Theistic Satanism and Luciferianism.

Scholarship, Transgression and Public Image§

Sociologists and musicologists have studied black metal as a culture of transgression. Keith Kahn-Harris describes the extreme-metal scene as a space in which participants experiment with taboo themes while usually keeping them separate from everyday life, a balance that broke down in early 1990s Norway. Writers such as Dayal Patterson have documented the musical history in detail, while the journalistic history Lords of Chaos (1998) remains widely read, though critics have argued that it gives uncritical space to the extremist views of some interviewees.

For historians of Satanism the genre shows how many different things "Satanism" can mean. In black metal it has ranged from the comic-book devil of the early 1980s to sincere anti-cosmic theology, and from the individualism of LaVey to a nihilism that rejects all humanist values. Most fans and musicians have never belonged to any Satanist organisation, and most Satanist organisations regard black metal's violence as alien to their teaching. The crimes of the Norwegian scene have nonetheless been used repeatedly to support older stereotypes of Satanism, showing how a small group's actions can shape the public image of a whole religious category, a pattern explored in What Is Satanism?.

Frequently asked questions§

Are all black metal bands Satanist?§

No. Many bands use Satanic imagery for aesthetic or provocative reasons, others draw on Norse paganism, nature or nihilism, and there is even a Christian form of the genre. A minority of musicians, especially in the "orthodox" scene, describe their Satanism as sincere religious belief.

Why were churches burned in Norway?§

Between 1992 and the mid-1990s members of a small black metal scene set fire to several churches, including Fantoft stave church in 1992. Participants presented the attacks as a war on Christianity, later recast by some as revenge for the Christianisation of Norway. Several people were convicted.

What is anti-cosmic Satanism?§

It is a theistic current, developed by the Swedish Misanthropic Luciferian Order in the 1990s, that sees the created cosmos as a prison made by a lesser god and Satan as a liberating force of chaos. It draws on Gnostic and Kabbalistic ideas and influenced some black metal bands.

Is black metal connected to the Church of Satan?§

Only loosely. Some early musicians admired LaVey's writings, but many in the Norwegian scene rejected the Church of Satan as too humanistic, and the Church does not endorse the crimes associated with the genre.

Sources and further reading§

• Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground — Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind, 1998
• Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult — Dayal Patterson, 2013
• Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge — Keith Kahn-Harris, 2007
• Lucifer Rising: A Book of Sin, Devil Worship and Rock 'n' Roll — Gavin Baddeley, 1999
• Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture — Deena Weinstein, 2000
• Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music — Robert Walser, 1993
• The Invention of Satanism — Asbjørn Dyrendal, James R. Lewis and Jesper Aa. Petersen, 2016