Yea.

Hell yea.

Actually, I find an enormous amount of value in many "occult" traditions. Like any other "spiritual" practices, the burden is on you to sort the wheat from the chaff. But these stories are the way deep wisdom was passed for a long time. For instance, Kali is a a figure that might be described as "occult". She is the (to the best of my knowledge, apologies for my ignorance) Hindu goddess that represents death and the end of all things. But she also represents eternal energy and fearlessness. To me, these concepts are tightly bound, so I enjoy reading stories that represent the underlying relationship, and enjoy art that uses these shared symbols to tell great stories.

But, like anything else, it's what are you really communicating, so the audience matters. To me, being a Christian means loving your neighbor, joining together in a community to do good things, fearlessly standing by your principles unto death, etc. But to many, it means intolerance to change, hypocrisy, and, all kinds of nasty things. So I'm careful to whom I communicate that I identify with Christians unless I know he /she will understand that to mean what I mean. Like anything else, it's just a symbol, and I have no more right do define it's absolute meaning than anyone else.

Same goes with a skull. A skull can represent the transient nature of human life, or it can represent insecurity, intimidation, and that you don't understand the value of life.

So, do you want a tattoo of a skull? Might not serve your best purposes. But a work of art involving occult symbolism that has a deep meaning to you? To me, that is a very worthy investment, and your opportunity to strengthen the meaning you see behind symbols that are important to you.

Great comment, Bren, thanks. Particular the part about Kali, definitely something to think about. I've done a good bit of reading about theology, but Hinduism is the major world religion I know the least about. Thanks for that, something for me to learn more about.

The skull on the desk is actually a pretty devout image from Christianity. St. Jerome and others did something like that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Jerome

Some of the paintings of St. Jerome are excellent.

As for Christianity meaning intolerance to change, hypocrisy, and nasty things - I think it's common our generation sees things that way, but I think it's false. The major branches of Christianity are pretty much all around 80% good in theory, and they do okay in practice too. I rebelled against organized religion when I was younger, but I realize most people can't study and scrutinize to build their ethical frameworks and communities they become part of. If you kill organized religion, you get disorganized religion instead - which is a hell of a lot worse. Christians tend to be pretty good and live pretty good lives - and depending on what aspects of Christianity you focus on, it can give a tremendous amount of strength and wisdom. Y'know, aspects of guilt aren't really written into the Bible or canon very much, and doesn't necessarily have to be part a person's worship. I don't really care for "weakness Christianity" which focuses on the aspects of guilt and sin, I prefer "strength Christianity" which focuses on readiness, service, virtue, strength, and even warriorship. There's been a lot of strong, virtuous Christian warriors through the ages.

Thanks for commenting - symbolism is an interesting topic. I'll learn more about Kali a little later today when I've got a moment.