- Jan 2, 2001
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The meaning of fingernails painted black originated in occult circles. Female initiates to a particular cult, coven, or order would be required to paint their fingernails black to covertly connote their status as a newly sworn initiate during a probationary period (e.g. Process Church during the 1970s). Variations on this occult theme included painting the ring finger on the left hand black as traditional belief established that a vein (Vena amoris) ran directly from the fourth finger of the left hand to the heart. And, because it had become a Judaeo-Christian custom to wear a ring on the fourth finger of the left hand as a symbol of love for, and fidelity to, ones significant other, the occult significance of a blackened nail on that finger was mean to symbolically blaspheme that custom. And again, because Satanic cults are culturally oppositional in nature, sexual mores are often rejected as unnatural social constructs; thus rape, incest, hom*osexuality, sexual orgies, infidelity, and sexual abuse of children is often incorporated into satanic ritual behavior. Thus, it became increasingly common for various elements of the counterculture to adopt occult trappings because the two circles often overlapped. Eventually, pimps, prostitutes, gay hustlers, pedophiles etc. began wearing black nail polish as a countercultural fashion statement alone.
That's a lot of BS.
