Sun, Sea, and Satanism

A beach trip to Elie with the Occult Club

“Sometimes we do get people showing up that ask like, ‘so when are we summoning the devil?’” said Anne Vrieling — a third-year chemistry student and the vice-president of St Andrews Antiquarian Society and Occult Club — on a sunny day in Elie. 

Last year, the Club visited a pagan site, attended a ghost tour, a presentation on ‘evil spirits,’ and a lecture on human sacrifice, and hosted an effigy burning. 

But “in reality”, said Cole Tan — third-year biology and chemistry student and the Club’s president — “we are as chill as clubs really can be.” He founded the club with Vrieling in their first year.

When I met with the Occult Club at the St Andrews bus stop, I first noticed the alternative style of its members. Next, I learned that the absent ‘‘Morpheus” couldn’t attend because “he was in the Arctic” — I never figured out if that was a euphemism. 

One harrowing bus journey later (props to Tan for the sick bag offer) and we arrived in Elie intending to go to one specific place, nattering, then repeating the process. 

Tan’s mum gets credit for the Club’s lengthy, yet “all-encapsulating” title, said Vrieling. It covered everything they’d planned, combining Vrieling’s love of horror movies with Tan’s love of board games, and — crucially — provided a far less cringier alternative to the original suggestion of ‘Vampire Club.’

“We recently had a really interesting lecture,” Vrieling said. “The talk — ‘Is human sacrifice wrong, and is it real?’ — was run by an academic who took a scientific approach to the “history of human sacrifice. And she–”

Tan cut Vrieling short to loudly direct the group’s attention to the public toilets.

“But we also do more casual things,” Vrieling added, “like we watched Friday the 13th on Friday the 13th.” She smiled. “Human sacrifice stuff, and then movie nights.”

Next, we visited an 18th-century tower. After some photo-ops and a hastily-aborted attempt by Tan to climb the tower, we went to look for garnets in the nearby sand. 

I asked what garnets were and how to find them, but nobody seemed sure. “I’m just going off Reddit,” said Tan. 

We spent about a half hour chatting, and even less time finding meagre bits of shell. Nobody seemed particularly put out. Vrieling found a translucent rock, which she proudly put in a baggie also containing her apple core.

At the start of their second year, Tan and Vrieling tried to (politely) crash Freshers’ Fair bearing a “little mini skeleton,” said Vrieling. “We asked them really nicely,” she said. “We were ready.” But they weren’t allowed to set up. 

Even now the Club still isn’t registered with the Union, but they’re not too fussed about going ‘official’. “It wouldn’t give us a lot,” Vrieling said. 

After the tower, we were off to Elie Lighthouse, and then the village beach.

I asked Tan and Vrieling about the effigy-burning. Vrieling said that — despite allegedly being the most occult-y looking thing the club did — the actual vibe was quite the opposite.

Vrieling explained how an evening of effigy-making is more arts-and-crafts-esque than ritualistic — members listened to rock music while competing to make the best straw effigy. “The winner was like a straw queen,” she said. 

One year, “the effigy that won was a Freddy Fazbear effigy,” said Tan. 

The Occult Club can’t take complete credit for the effigy-burning idea, though — the whole thing originated from a collaborative effort with RockSoc.

 “Effigy-building doesn’t really have a lot of occult or like esoteric history behind it,” said Tan. It’s simply — as he put it — “a lil’ British tradition.”

While the club welcomes people of all beliefs, some of its members are more spiritual. But Vrieling and Tan both said they were firmly sceptical and denied any overlap with the explicitly spiritual Pagan society. “Honestly, I have never met with Pagan Soc”, Tan admitted. “I know one person in it, but that’s just because we’re friends from D&D.”

Occult club is “definitely a secular society,” said Tan.  

The Instagram highlight titled ‘Necromancy’ referred to a lecture hosted by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Even the ghost tour, Tan said, was meant as secular, academically researched fun.

As we waited for the bus home, I asked Tan where he saw the club going after he and Vrieling graduated.

He said he didn’t mind if the club changed on the surface — its original purpose was to be a welcoming environment, anyway.

Nowadays the club is explicitly alcohol-free and LGBTQ+ friendly. It even has a society magazine — Ouroboros — which includes freaky book recommendations and very angsty art (submissions are open).  

“I do hope that we’ll be able to keep some of the core things going,” he added, “like being a sober space, being for everybody, being inclusive.”

What does the club mean to him? “I don’t think I would have met most of the people here, from Occult Society, if the Club didn’t exist,” said Tan.

To finish up each interview, I asked Tan and Vrieling if they could rate the club from one to ten — one matching a Louis-Theroux-goes-UFO-hunting vibe, and ten as a more Great-British-Sewing-Bee vibe. Tan didn’t feel like he could give a number. Vrieling gave it a five.

“We get to explore, like, paranormal stuff … but we also get to just hang out and do sweet stuff like watch movies,” said Vrieling, “and all get a bit scared together.”

Illustration: Lauren McAndrew