Occult clothing is clothing and jewellery that carries the signs of Western esoteric tradition: the pentagram, the moon in its phases, the serpent, the inverted cross, the sigil. Worn well, it shows that you know what each sign has meant, which way up it goes and whose it is. Worn as a costume, it shows only that you bought it.
The word occult comes from the Latin occultus, hidden, yet very little on this page was ever hidden. The pentagram shines on a knight's shield in a medieval poem. The inverted cross belongs to a saint. The Ouija board was patented in Baltimore as a toy.
What has gone missing is the reading, and a symbol nobody can read turns into fancy dress.
So this guide goes symbol by symbol: where each one comes from, what it has meant, what it says on a garment now, and a piece of ours that carries it. Every origin below is taken from a primary text, a museum or a reference work, named where it is used.
Key Takeaways
- Orientation changes the meaning. In the 1850s Éliphas Lévi wrote that a pentagram with one point up is "the sign of the Saviour", and with two points up "represents Satan as the goat of the Sabbath".
- The pentacle is the emblem of a living religion. The US Department of Veterans Affairs lists "Wicca (Pentacle)" among the emblems of belief it will inscribe on a government headstone.
- The inverted cross was a Christian sign first. Eusebius records that the apostle Peter "was crucified head-downwards".
- The Leviathan cross is the alchemical sign for sulphur, and the Church of Satan's own account is that it was used as "a spooky decoration" with "no other significance".
- The hamsa is not an occult symbol. The British Museum describes hand amulets that "may have been used by Muslims or Jews" against the "eye of envy".
What is occult clothing?
Occult clothing is any garment or piece of jewellery that takes its motif from magic, alchemy, astrology or witchcraft. Occult fashion is the same thing seen as a whole look. It overlaps with the witchy outfit and the witchcore outfit, but those are silhouettes, and occult is a vocabulary of signs.
That is why one pendant can sit on a velvet gown or on a plain black T-shirt and still count. The cut carries the mood. The symbol carries the meaning, and meaning is the part that can go wrong.
If the silhouette is what you are after, our witchy outfit guide puts one together in layers and settles how many details a day can take. This page is about the details themselves.
How do you wear occult clothing without it reading as a costume?
Ask three things of a symbol before you put it on: which way up it is, whose it is, and what it is sitting beside. A costume skips all three, which is why it reads as a costume even when every piece in it is well made.
First, which way up. A pentagram and a cross both change their meaning when they are turned over, and both changes are explained below. If a pendant could be hung either way, decide which reading you want before you buy it.
Second, whose it is. Some of these signs are the emblems of living religions: the pentacle of Wicca, the hamsa in Jewish and Muslim homes, the cross itself. You do not have to belong to wear one. You should know that someone you pass may hold it sacred.
Third, what it sits beside. Signs from traditions that reject each other cancel out. A Wiccan pentacle worn with a goat-headed inverted star says you have read neither, because reference works on Wicca are plain that Wiccans do not believe in the Devil at all.
The version of this question that belongs to 31 October has its own page, our goth Halloween outfit guide. For clasps, ring sizes and metals, see our guide to goth jewellery.
What does the pentagram mean, and is a pentacle different?
The pentagram is a five-pointed star drawn in five straight lines. Its older meanings are health, truth and Christian virtue. Its sinister reading was put on paper in the nineteenth century.
The Greek satirist Lucian reports that the followers of Pythagoras called the pentagram Health and used it as "a sort of password". In the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the hero carries a gold pentangle on a red shield. The poet calls it the endless knot, says Solomon devised it as a token of truth, and ties it to five sets of five, among them the five senses, the five wounds of Christ and the five joys of Mary.
The turn comes with the French occultist Éliphas Lévi. In Transcendental Magic, in A. E. Waite's translation, he writes: "The Pentagram with two points in the ascendant represents Satan as the goat of the Sabbath; when one point is in the ascendant, it is the sign of the Saviour." The inverted star's darker reputation starts there.
As for the two words, reference works use them almost interchangeably. The Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology files pentacle and pentagram under a single entry. In practice pentacle has come to mean the star inside a circle, which is how the US Department of Veterans Affairs draws the emblem it labels "Wicca (Pentacle)".
Is the pentacle a religious symbol?
Yes. Wicca is a Pagan witchcraft tradition popularised by the British civil servant Gerald Gardner, whose Witchcraft Today appeared in 1954, and the point-up pentacle is its emblem. The Department of Veterans Affairs lists it among the emblems of belief available for government headstones and markers.
So a point-up pentacle on a chain is, to a Wiccan, what a cross is to a Christian. Our view is that you can wear one without being Wiccan, as long as you wear it as a real emblem and not as a prop.
How to wear a pentagram
Keep the point up unless you mean the other reading, and pick one scale.
The Gothic Pentacle Pendant Necklace, $19.99, is a point-up star in a circle, modelled as if bound from bare thorned twigs, in a silver-coloured finish. It is the closest piece we carry to the emblem itself. The Pentagram Duo Necklace, also $19.99, hangs one small circled star below another on a single drop of chain.
On cloth, the Dangerous Pentagram Crop Top builds the star into the garment: black straps cross the open neckline below a high collar and draw five points, one of them up. It is $30.15 in S and $33.20 in M and L. The Fishnet Pentagram Tights scatter five-pointed stars, some of them circled, across black fishnet. Choose the Pentagram style, $32.09, as the other option on that listing is a different pattern.
A pendant reads from across a table and patterned tights read from across a street, so wear one or the other.
What does an inverted pentagram with a goat's head mean?
An inverted pentagram holding a goat's face is the sign of modern Satanism, and it is younger than it looks. It takes Lévi at his word. Turn the star so that two points are up and one is down, he wrote, and "we may see the horns, ears and beard" of the goat.
The Church of Satan's own history of the design says that, as far as is known, the first printed image of a goat's face in a five-pointed star was an engraving in Stanislas de Guaita's La Clef de la Magie Noire in 1897. The Church published its own version on the cover of The Satanic Bible in December 1969, named it the Sigil of Baphomet, and calls it the prime symbol for Satanists.
Our Goat Pentagram Necklace is a cousin of that sigil, not a copy: a goat's skull laid over a circled star with two points up, in silver for $19.99 or black for $30.98. It is the one piece here that makes a statement about belief whether you intend one or not. Wear it alone, and never beside a point-up pentacle.
What do moon phases and the triple moon mean?
A moon on a garment stands for change that returns. NASA lists eight lunar phases, from new moon through waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous and third quarter to waning crescent, repeating about every 29.5 days.
In Wicca the moon is also a face of the divine. The BBC's guide to the religion describes a Triple Goddess whose aspects of Virgin, Mother and Crone are associated with the waxing, full and waning moon. That is what the triple moon sign draws: a full moon between two crescents. To the alchemists the crescent meant something else again, as it was their sign for silver, and the sun was their sign for gold.
The moon is the quietest occult sign there is, and the easiest to wear to work.
- The Silver Moon Phases Necklace, $19.99, sets the phases in a ring on a round black disc.
- The Black Moon Phase Tee prints them in one column down the chest. It comes in grey, black and red, in S to 5XL, at $29.71 for the grey in S and $32.32 for every other size and colour.
- The Black Moon Choker, $19.99, hangs a single black crescent, horns down, from a black band.
- The Triple Moon Pentagram Necklace, $19.99, shows one filigree crescent with a circled pentagram hanging inside it, so despite the name it reads as a crescent and a pentacle.
Are sun, star and planet prints occult clothing?
Yes, in the oldest sense, because astrology and astronomy share their signs. NASA notes that the symbols for the planets, the Moon and the Sun were developed for use in both astronomy and astrology, and that Venus's sign is thought to be the goddess's hand mirror, Mars's a shield and spear, and Saturn's an ancient scythe.
Our pieces go for the picture where an astrologer would use the glyph. The Moon & Star Black Mesh Top is sheer black mesh with long sleeves, printed in rust with suns and crescent moons that have faces, and with stars between them. It is $31.02 in S and $31.44 in M and L. The Mystic Astrology Sun Backpack, $32.89, is printed in cream on black: a sun with a face at the centre, moons in phase above and below it, and rays, eyes, stars and ringed planets around.
A celestial print is the softest way into occult clothing, and it is the bridge to our whimsigoth collection.
The eye: all-seeing eye or evil eye?
These are two different eyes. The all-seeing eye, properly the Eye of Providence, watches over you. The evil eye is a harm that an amulet is meant to turn away.
An Eye of Providence sits on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States, in the design the Continental Congress approved on 20 June 1782. The US Government Publishing Office describes it at the top of a thirteen-step pyramid, under the motto Annuit Coeptis. The evil eye belongs with the hamsa, further down this page.
Two of our pieces carry an eye, and neither is quite either of those. The Heart of Thorns Necklace, $26.50, sets an eye in a red heart ringed with rays, under a rose, with small blade charms on the chain. The Black Evil Eye Hair Clip, $19.99, is a pair of bat wings around a red eye with a slit pupil. That is a creature's eye from the horror shelf, and it has nothing to do with the amulet.
What does the serpent mean, and what is an ouroboros?
The serpent is the oldest double sign in the wardrobe: tempter in one book and healer in another. Genesis introduces it as "more subtil than any beast of the field". The World Health Organization, which has carried a staff with a snake coiling round it in its emblem since 1948, traces that staff to Asclepius, the Greek god of healing.
An ouroboros is a serpent eating its own tail. The Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology calls it an ancient Greek alchemical symbol, drawn in The Chrysopoeia of Kleopatra with the words "One is All". It adds that the fourth-century writer Horapollo said the Egyptians pictured the universe as a serpent devouring its tail, a symbol of eternity.
Neither of our snakes bites its tail, so neither is an ouroboros. The Snake Dagger Pendant Choker, $19.99, winds a silver-coloured snake around a dagger and hangs it from a black band. The Punk Serpent Black Ring Set, $19.99, is five black rings, one of them a coiled snake. A snake belongs on the hands or at the throat, where it can coil around something.
Is an inverted cross satanic, and what is the Leviathan cross?
Not originally. The inverted cross is the cross of Saint Peter. Eusebius, in his Church History, records on Origen's authority that Peter "was crucified head-downwards; for he had requested that he might suffer in this way."
The second reading is real as well. The Church of Satan's own guide to its symbols grants that Christians see the reversed cross as Peter's, and adds that literature has long shown anyone who embraces Satan as embracing that cross. So one pendant can read as the papacy's own sign or as a refusal of the church. In a dark wardrobe most people will see the refusal, and you should know the saint is in there too.
The Inverted Cross Choker, $28.99, is a black band with silver-coloured dome studs, two draped chains and a plain inverted cross, closed with a buckle.
The Leviathan cross is a double-barred cross standing on an infinity sign. The same Church of Satan guide does not use that name. It says the symbol printed beside the Nine Satanic Statements in The Satanic Bible is the alchemical symbol for sulphur, and that Anton LaVey "used it as a spooky decoration and it has no other significance". It is brimstone, in other words, and a good deal less than its reputation.
We carry it on one piece. The Familiar Bag, $59.99, is a black tote printed in ivory with two facing cats drawn like tattoo flash. Between them, from top to bottom, run an inverted cross, a Leviathan cross and an inverted pentagram. Three signs of refusal in one print make it the loudest thing here, so carry it against plain black.
What is a sigil?
A sigil is a seal. The word comes from the Late Latin sigillum, and the Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology defines it as "a sign or seal for an occult entity", the mark of an angel, a deity or a demon, often used on amulets and talismans.
That makes a sigil different in kind from a moon or a star. It is a name, and wearing it means wearing one particular entity's mark.
The Lucifer Symbolism Ring is a signet engraved with one of the characters of Lucifer printed in the Grimorium Verum. That French grimoire's title page claims to have been published in Memphis in 1517, and its modern editor, Joseph H. Peterson, dates the printing to 1817. A signet is the right object for it, since a signet is what a seal was pressed with.
The ring is sold in three sizes: $19.99 for a 7, and $31.33 for an 8 or a 9.
Where does the Ouija planchette come from?
The planchette is the heart-shaped pointer of a talking board, and the board is an American parlour game. US patent 446,054, granted on 10 February 1891 to Elijah J. Bond of Baltimore, describes "a toy or game" that he calls "an Ouija or Egyptian luck-board".
A history of the board published by The Strong National Museum of Play puts it bluntly: the men who patented and popularised it "were not Spiritualists, but capitalists", and the board "was never advertised as a tool for spirit communication". The séance came to the toy, and stayed.
On a chain, that makes the planchette the friendliest sign on this page. The Seductive Ouija Necklace, $19.99, is a planchette-shaped pendant engraved with YES, NO, GOODBYE and HELLO around a skull. The Ouija Pin, $19.99, is a planchette in black enamel, for a lapel or a bag strap.
Is the hamsa an occult symbol?
No. The hamsa is a hand-shaped amulet from a living tradition of protection, and it does not belong on the grimoire shelf.
The British Museum's note on two hand amulets, one from Morocco and one from Palestine, says that in the Middle East and North Africa they are called khamsas, meaning five, or Hands of Fatima, after the Prophet's daughter. It adds that such amulets "may have been used by Muslims or Jews to ward off the 'eye of envy'".
We carry one hamsa, and it is not for wearing. The Black Hand Hamsa Trinket Tray, $19.99, is a hand-shaped ceramic dish for rings, painted with black flowers on white, with a gold-coloured rim. If the hamsa comes from your own family's tradition, you need no advice from us. If it does not, keep it for what it is, a wish for protection, and keep it well away from the inverted cross.
Do moths and bats mean anything on clothing?
The moth does, and the bat means two opposite things.
The moth on our jewellery is the death's-head hawk-moth. Butterfly Conservation describes it as strikingly large, with a skull-like marking on its thorax and a squeak when alarmed, and says it was traditionally seen as an omen of death. The same charity finds it as a prophecy of doom in Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native and on the cover of The Silence of the Lambs.
The Moth Skull Wire Necklace, $19.99, hangs that moth, skull and all, from a chain with barbed links. The Gothic Steel Skull Moth Ring spreads it across a second, larger skull. It is sized 7, 8 and 9, and costs $19.99 for the smallest and $29.32 for the other two.
In the West the bat is the vampire's animal. In Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), Van Helsing reckons with a Count who can take "the form of a bat". In Chinese art the same animal is a blessing: the Art Institute of Chicago reads the five bats on a Qing dynasty dish as a pictorial pun for five blessings, namely longevity, health, wealth, virtue and a natural death.
The Gothic Bat Necklace hangs a bat between red and black beads, with two smaller bats on the chain, in black for $19.99 or silver plated for $31.43. The Silver Bat Moon Earrings, $19.99, set a bat inside a hoop above a row of moons with a small circled star at the centre, so one pair carries three signs at once.
Which occult clothing comes in which sizes?
Most pieces that carry a symbol are jewellery, and jewellery has no dress size. The garments do, and their ranges are short, so check before you fall for a print.
- The Black Moon Phase Tee runs from S to 5XL, the longest range of the four.
- The Dangerous Pentagram Crop Top and the Moon & Star Black Mesh Top come in S, M and L only.
- The Fishnet Pentagram Tights are listed as one size.
- The two rings come in sizes 7, 8 and 9.
For everything that hangs from a chain or an ear, start with our gothic jewellery collection, then narrow to necklaces, rings or earrings.
Frequently asked questions
Is it disrespectful to wear a pentagram if you are not Wiccan?
Not in itself. The star is far older than Wicca and has carried Greek, Christian and occult meanings. The circled, point-up form is Wicca's recognised emblem, though, so treat it as you would any religious sign: wear it sincerely, and do not pair it with imagery that mocks belief.
What is the difference between a pentagram and a pentacle?
A pentagram is the five-pointed star on its own. Pentacle usually names that star enclosed in a circle, and it is the word the US Department of Veterans Affairs uses for the Wiccan emblem. Older reference works treat the two terms as the same thing.
Is an upside-down cross satanic?
It can be read that way, but it began as the cross of Saint Peter, who by early Christian tradition asked to be crucified head down. Its use as an anti-Christian sign comes from later literature. Organised Satanism has a separate chief emblem, the goat-faced Sigil of Baphomet.
What does the triple moon symbol mean?
It shows a waxing crescent, a full moon and a waning crescent side by side. In Wicca those stand for the Triple Goddess as Virgin, Mother and Crone. A lone crescent, or a row of all eight phases, is a moon motif and not the triple moon.
Can you wear occult symbols to work?
Yes, if you choose the quiet ones. A moon phase pendant, a small serpent ring or a celestial print passes in most offices without comment. Keep inverted crosses, goat-headed stars and named sigils for your own time, because those three make a statement about belief.
