Black sun burst with a pentagram in a circle at its centre and the words I EXORCISE NOT EXERCISE arranged around it, drawn on a plain light grey background.

I exorcise, not exercise sun and pentagram

Black and grey · Flash

The design shows a solid black sun-like burst with flame-shaped rays surrounding a circle containing a five-pointed pentagram. The phrase I EXORCISE NOT EXERCISE is set in serif capitals curved around the emblem. The artwork is flat black on a plain light grey background with no shading, and it is shown as a drawing rather than on skin.

Pentagram Sun Circle Flame Text

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The thing in Mrs Okafor's airing cupboard had been there since Thursday, and by Saturday it had started to sulk. I could hear it through the floorboards, a low grumble like a fridge with opinions. Father Dunstan had sent me because I was the only one in the parish who still owned a working pentagram and because I was, in his words, 'the only one of us who can lift a bag of salt without a groan.'

Keep reading

I said the rite the old way: chalk circle, sunburst scratched into the lino with a ballpoint, holy water poured from an old squash bottle because the church one had gone to a lad who wanted to bless his van. The demon did not care for any of it. It uncoiled out of the boiler pipe, long and yellow-eyed, and tried what they always try, which is talking you into sitting down.

Nobody warns you about this part. A proper exorcism is a workout. Forty minutes of standing, circling, pushing the sigil through the air with both arms out, shouting the Latin in a voice that carries through three walls. My forearms were on fire and my knees had given up. The demon sensed weakness and rallied, and I had to hold the circle with my back against the bath while it hissed that I was just a bad man in a cardigan.

I finished on the last line with sweat in my eyes, and the thing slid back down the pipe with a noise like a deflating lilo. Mrs Okafor opened her door in a dressing gown and asked, 'Is it done, love?' I said it was. Then I went home, ate two custard creams standing up, and wrote on the kitchen whiteboard, under the list of things I was meant to be doing: GYM. I looked at it for a while, crossed it out, and wrote EXORCISE underneath.