Do tattoos and piercings attract demons?

[Desecrated]

From a Christian perspective:

God created hell, demons can't just walk out of it when ever they want to, only extremely powerful demons can break through and that takes long and powerful ceremonies.
There is a general rule that they can't take possession unless invited.
Small things like piercings and tattoos isn't nearly enough to attract a demon.

Now, there is a passage in the bible about not making markings on your body but this is not a mortal sin, it's a part of the Deuteronomy laws, which details how Jewish people should live.

From a shamanistic perspective.
A lot of primitive people have tattoos, markings or piercing. Almost every early civilization have had that.

[Moth]

Hello, I keep hearing that tattoos and piercings would attract demons due to making holes in the body. In shamanism they even warn you about receiving surgery because demons would take advantage of your body being cut open to "enter" inside. This is a concept that I've always thought to be strange because the human body naturally has holes already. How about the nostrils or the mouth for example? Couldn't demons enter through your nostrils?? Yet the concept of tattoos and piercing opening a gate to demons is so widely spread that I'm asking myself a lot of questions. I would appreciate if anyone could enlight me reguarding this topic...

No. Not unless you invite them in.

[the_spiral]

Widely spread? Maybe it's a specific cultural superstition but I've never heard of this before. And i don't see how that could happen unless you tattooed the demon's sigil on yourself or something. Generally they don't show up without an invite, and they have better things to be doing than flying through people's lip rings and butt holes.

[Desecrated]

I see, thanks for your answers but how about what they call "auric tear"?

Your aura is not part of your body. Although these things do act together and can certainly influence each other I don't think that a piercing is going to rip a whole in your aura.
Usually tears in the aura are caused by psychic attacks, and tattoos and piercing can certainly be painful, but it is a pain that you choose for yourself and also a pain that a lot of people enjoy. So it's not the same as somebody attacking you. This is why you don't suffer the chock of riding a roller-coaster, but you can suffer the shock of a car accident.


You can also heal your aura independently from your body, even if you ended up in a hospital with a long term injury, you can patch up your own aura fairly quickly.
And interesting enough you can use metals and minerals for healing your aura so you could actually use piercing/jewelry to maintain your aura and make it stronger.

[Haelos]

Tattoos can be charged with intent in the process of receiving them. Depending on the artist, of course, this can be anything from simple evil-eye-like intent (whether positive or negative), or a more trance-induced state.
The blood, pain, and amount of time they take all create a conduit for charging.

For a trained magician, this is easily overcome, and most people wouldn't notice any change to their being. The changes come on a more subtle level, and take place over time. As they aren't legitimate spells, per say, it's not as intense as, say, the ritualistic tattooing performed by some cultures (Example, http://www.tv.com/shows/permanent-mark/)

Piercings are a bit different. The only charging that would happen would most likely come from you, and it wouldn't be much. Most piercings don't cause a lot of pain, and they're done very quickly.

As for spiritual entities entering your body through these things, this is extremely unlikely, and would only happen through extensive ritual. I've never heard of such a thing, but I'm sure you could bind a spirit into a part of your body. They've done it with tools, so I don't see why it's not possible.

Coming from a person who's had four lip piercings, 1 inch stretched earlobes and a stretched cartilage stud, a nose piercing, and has about 15 tattoos (11 if you count them being an over-all piece), I can say with some degree of certainty that spirits don't try to penetrate your needle holes.

[Haelos]

Ah I see. Well that is really interesting. I had never heard about the use of metals and minerals to heal your aura. Nor have I ever heard that we could charge tattoos and piercings eventhough I suspected you could use tattoos during magic ritual as you use sigils.

In Hinduism they say that piercing your left nostril repels demons. I wonder why?

it's an interesting theory, and worth looking into. That was the side I had pierced, and all I can say about nostril piercings are that they're nasty and in an uncomfortable spot. I did my own, had to do it twice and I blacked out each time. Probably hit a nerve. Then the bogies that get covered on your jewelry. Every day you wake up you literally have to mine your nose out to breathe. I got rid of mine quick.

Sigil magick uses a lot of the basic concepts of charging, so to perform a spell with a tattoo would be much the same, just a little longer in its cast, and shorter in its construction. I wouldn't recommend sigilizing your body though. At least, not a lot, and not without a hell of a lot of forethought.

[Desecrated]

In Hinduism they say that piercing your left nostril repels demons. I wonder why?

Well, "hinduism" is really a western concept of several different religions, cultures and groups, so the use of piercing is different from group to group. Usually it just signifies that the women is married.
But this is a practice done by many middle eastern people as well and nose piercing is even mentioned in the bible:

Genesis 24:22
"When the camels had finished drinking, the man took out a gold nose ring weighing a beka and two gold bracelets weighing ten shekels."

[one-off]

I heard of this somewhere. I think it was on Inuyasha haha. Or some other anime. Anyway, the idea is an infectious disease could be considered a physical demon. When you open a hole in your body you do expose yourself to them. Back in say a tribal shaman like environment where they used dirty tools for tattoos and piercings it was probably common to get infections and die. Then even though it's not technically opening you up to "demons" it would leave you vulnerable to micro-organisms.

I'm curious how the etheric energy of viruses/infections would look now that you mention it. Are the various spiritual entities able to posses and control these things? Do they have a soul belonging to the animal kingdom, and I wonder if elementals, egregore, or other spiritual creatures could take control of them. Man...if obtaining astral vision wasn't dangerous I'd totally skip over my other training steps and go right into that portion of my magick training. I'm fascinated by it all.

[Nahemah]

Back in say a tribal shaman like environment where they used dirty tools for tattoos and piercings it was probably common to get infections and die. Then even though it's not technically opening you up to "demons" it would leave you vulnerable to micro-organisms.

I'd have to query the dirty part here, although a lack of modern medical understanding did indeed cause many illnesses through infection, in times past and still does today in many places. This was a global problem, however and it was most prevalent in 'civilised' places where there was massive overcrowding and poor living conditions.

If piercing and tattooing consistently caused lots of deaths over time, Shamanic societies would have stopped these practices. So called 'Primitive' people were neither daft nor dirty and it's a sweepingly inaccurate generalisation to assume they were.

[Hadit]

Lol!

[corvidus]

If piercing and tattooing consistently caused lots of deaths over time, Shamanic societies would have stopped these practices. So called 'Primitive' people were neither daft nor dirty and it's a sweepingly inaccurate generalisation to assume they were.

Quite true. I remember watching a documentary on religious tattooing, and the most interesting bit of information I heard was that the ink the monks used included a small amount of snake venom.

Shamans, and maybe monks as well, know their shit -- specially when it comes to the use of plants and animals. I wouldn't be surprised if most indigenous tattoo inks contained a combination of anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral ingredients.