I was recruited — unsuccessfully — by the Global Order of Satan.
I was recruited — unsuccessfully — by the Global Order of Satan.
W hat do you wear to the Satanic Flea Market? I put on a black turtleneck and tan slacks, then switched into black slacks. I didn’t have any black eyeliner, so I swiped on the darkest shade of red lipstick I own.
I am not a satanist, although many progressives on my undergraduate campus believed that I was summoned from the Ninth Circle of Hell rather than born. I heard about the London Satanic Flea Market through some glitch in the Instagram algorithm, and I couldn’t suppress my journalistic curiosity. The plan was simple: I would attend the event, then meet up with my mother, who was in England visiting, for some sightseeing afterwards. But then it proved difficult to determine a precise meeting place and time, so I did what any raging goth would do: I brought my mom to the satanist social.
Plenty of people attended — although I don’t think anyone else went with their mom. The flea market was indoors, and the line (or queue, as the Brits say) wrapped around the block. After waiting about ten minutes, I paid my £4 entrance fee and had my hand brandished with a ram’s-head stamp. I worried momentarily that it would never wash off, but if that was the case, I would just tell people that I’m an Aries.
I wandered through the multi-level labyrinth, passing bars and a coffee shop; apparently, goths drink iced lattes with oat milk. But before I could get to the top floor where tattoo artists embellished new customers, I was recruited by members of the Global Order of Satan, which ironically doesn’t believe in Satan. I’m a staunch defender of free speech, so I listened to their pitch. I couldn’t quite grasp their underlying philosophy: They claimed to recognize the importance of dissent and rational inquiry, but they were also fiercely against “intolerance” and “bigotry.” (I wondered how someone in the group could criticize, say, the concept of gender identity without being branded a bigot and facing expulsion.) I told them that this probably wasn’t the right group for me.
There were more than 100 vendors throughout the venue. I learned that satanists are decidedly inclusive. They are very pro-sex, but I believe these people have a lot of difficulty finding someone who wants to have sex with them. I surveyed displays of a variety of bras, harnesses, collars, and garter belts. There was plenty of LGBTQ-themed merchandise, like a sweatshirt that said “satanist” in rainbow colors and pins for every possible pronoun combination. (The brand Abprallen, which infamously partnered with Target for a pride-month collaboration, sold its “Satan Respects Pronouns” shirts.) If I were the director of communications for global transgender rights, I would probably advise activists that, in order to promote widespread social acceptance of transgenderism, they should probably not associate it with the Devil. But what do I know?
Plenty of sellers provided adequate material to haunt my forthcoming nightmares. The aptly named vendor “That’s Vile,” which sells clay figurines, displayed one of a mutilated, bloody fetus on a sanitary pad. One memorable stand sold particularly disturbing objects: vintage human glass eyes, dog d*** bones, pacemakers from corpses, mummified brains of an unmentioned species, and animal fetuses in glass jars — possibly a local delicacy reserved for the finest satanic tea parties.
“Jesus,” I muttered while inspecting the pickled cat.
“Jesus has nothing to do with this,” the vendor told me sternly. I didn’t argue because he was entirely correct.
Admittedly, not all the sellers were stereotypically satanist; they were just kind of quirky, like one artist who reimagined well-known portrait paintings with insect faces. I flipped through some interesting reading material. One book, if I had bought it, would teach me how to tell time with cats. Some stands sold bath salts, lotions, and beard balms, but evidently none of the people at this flea market had ever showered. A taxidermist displayed stuffed birds and foxes. (I hoped he was also a ventriloquist, but he was not.)
I regret to inform you that I did make some purchases. I bought a small poster that captures my ballerina background and latent libertarianism: “Life not going well? Try dancing. The government can’t stop you.” I also purchased a small wall hook that looks like a frog; it seemed whimsical, like something you might read about in Alice in Wonderland. I nearly snagged a leather jacket with spikes that made me look moderately gangster and intimidating — quite a feat, since I’m 5′ 2″ and 100 pounds — but I simply didn’t have $350 to spare. My mother bought funky sunglasses that make her look like a movie star and dark-green leather gloves.
The rest of the day, my mother and I took in the more aesthetically pleasing sites such as Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and the London Eye. Despite the ram’s head stamped on our hands, we wandered into Westminster Cathedral. While listening to the choir, I realized that I should probably go to confession.