It started with an affinity for industrial music, a fondness for gothic fashion, and a devotion to DJing, but Tracy Derynck’s penchant for pentagrams has now allowed her to become a Religious Studies professor, specializing in Satanism and practicing the religion within her own denomination.
Since childhood, Derynck was interested in the darker side of life — and it all started with music.
Trained in piano from a young age, she would soon find interest in heavy metal tracks, enjoying their political skew.
“Music should be about something that people care about,” she said. “You know, maybe you’ll change the world, right?”
Coming out of high school with a newfound appreciation for alternative clothes, she found herself in a club called The Warehouse, nestled in the centre of Calgary.
Before closing in 2010, the venue made its name as a hub for the city’s goth community.
“You see a bunch of people that [are] so cool looking, and it’s like, ‘Oh, where are they going? Oh, they’re all going to The Warehouse,’” she said.
Bringing people together through music
After hearing about conflicting tastes on the club floor, she began to wonder how she could bring people together through music.
“I kept meeting people where they’re like, ‘Oh, I only like industrial.’ ‘I only like gothic.’ And I’m like, but I like all of those things,” she said.
Soon, she was in the DJ booth, where she would spin discs to share her love for various music genres and unite her peers on the dance floor.
Derynck’s friend Lewis King, whom she met while clubbing and has known for eight years, was struck by her diverse tastes when he attended one of her shows.
“She would play different types of music, going through industrial, electronic, some steampunk, even,” King said.
From there, Derynck began using music as a form of self-expression in her personal time, working from a home studio to create an album reflecting her various influences.
After a period of romantic turmoil and religious intrigue, she would go on to make an industrial album called Parasite Priestess.
“There was this interesting entanglement between my spiritual interests and my relationships at the time,” Derynck said. “It was an album that was kind of elaborating on being disenchanted with the relationship experiences I’d had to that point.”
A turn to DJing
Looking for new opportunities, she would travel to Ottawa, Montréal, and Lancaster, U.K., but soon returned to Calgary — and the DJ booth.
Performing under her self-titled banner, Angels of Disruption, Derynck hosted shows throughout Calgary that would become the city’s longest-running series of goth events, running for 13 years.
While she welcomed the chance to host for so long, what she got the most out of the experience was the connections she made and the opportunities to step out of her comfort zone.
“You want to have a full experience of life and not just kind of stay sheltered in your little box,” she said.
A developing spirituality
A large part of Derynck’s “full experience” has been her spirituality, which she developed throughout her teenage years.
Despite ignoring religion throughout her childhood, a fight with a friend in high school over spirituality spurred her to look more deeply into various faiths.
“I was like, ‘OK, apparently religion is a thing that we ruin friendships over,’” Derynck said. “‘Might be worth finding out what the options are out there and why we’re doing what we’re doing.’”
With her newfound interest in religion, it was only a matter of time before she stumbled onto Satanist ideas.
She quickly latched onto the religion, saying it’s not only misunderstood but stigmatized.
“Most of the stuff about what people think Satanists believe is incorrect,” she said. “I like telling people it’s like humanism for goths.”
Spiritual interest leads to studying religion
Her interest in religion and its potential to make positive change led her down the path of Religious Studies, for which she got her bachelor’s degree at the University of Calgary (U of C).
However, lacking career prospects and struggling to maintain her work, Derynck began “procrastinating” by completing her PhD at U of C as well.
Though she never had much interest in teaching, Derynck remained invested in education.
A passion for teaching
Soon after finishing her PhD, she went from student to professor, landing a job at Mount Royal University.
“I just kind of fell into (it) as the path of least resistance,” she said. “Once you have the PhD, people just believe you know what you’re doing.”
Though she has no formal education in the religion, Derynck’s classes touch heavily upon her Satanist roots, and she uses them as opportunities to dispel rumours about the practice for her students.
Student Josh Hoy became so engaged in Derynck’s general education class that he sought her other courses out — even dragging his friends along with him.
“I think the material in that course really fundamentally changed how I think and how I go about thinking,” Hoy said. “It’s had a pretty massive effect on my experiences in life and university in general.”
While a touchy subject, Derynck says Satanism tends to go over well with students once they understand what it is, and notes that comparing the intimidating religion to other beliefs makes it easier to understand.
“It’s just like any other religion …. You gotta be able to learn about it and find out what it’s actually about,” said Derynck. “I’d have to say that the number of positive responses I’ve got vastly outweighs the negative responses.”
Despite a recent return to music and a continued interest in promoting her spirituality, teaching at MRU is still Derynck’s first love, and she has no plans to abandon it for creative pursuits.
“I feel like I influence more people… with the trajectory I’ve gone in,” she said. You can pry that job out of my cold, dead hands.”