Per Aspera Ad Inferi
Song Meaning

“Per Aspera Ad Inferi” translates to “through hardships to the underworld,” a deliberate inversion of the classical phrase “per aspera ad astra” (through hardships to the stars) 1. Rather than triumph through struggle, Ghost frames hardship as a descent, using imagery of lust, blasphemy, and infernal surrender to suggest that pushing through pain and temptation can lead to a kind of dark rebirth or inner peace 1. The lyrics contain cryptic biblical and mythological references that add ritual weight to this idea of suffering as transformation 1. Overall, listeners have read the song as an exploration of temptation, resilience, and the human struggle to overcome adversity, delivered through Ghost’s signature occult theater 1.

The meaning

The title itself is the clearest key to the song’s meaning: “Per Aspera Ad Inferi” reverses the well-known Latin phrase “per aspera ad astra” (“through hardships to the stars”), replacing the stars with the underworld. That swap has been read as suggesting one must navigate difficult, even damning experiences to reach a kind of inner peace or purpose, just inverted toward darkness rather than light 1. Where the classical version promises glory, Ghost’s version promises descent, and the song treats that descent as the point rather than a detour.

Verse one leans into that inversion with unapologetic imagery of desire and sin: “Unholy is the lust in your eyes,” “blasphemous would not suffice,” and “tanning in Lucifer’s beams.” This has been interpreted as depicting temptation not as a trap to resist but as something already fully embraced, consistent with readings of the song as exploring temptation and the inner battles individuals face both internally and externally 1. The addressed “you” isn’t fighting the pull toward sin so much as basking in it.

The line “Through pangs of death, you’ll be baptized” has been singled out as a striking use of religious inversion: baptism, normally a symbol of cleansing and rebirth into faith, is here tied to death and suffering, suggesting that hardship itself functions as the transformative ritual, a twisted rite of passage rather than a punishment 1. Paired with “Into the night, the light slips away,” which has been read as a surrender to the darkness within, the song builds a picture of someone choosing to let go rather than resist 1.

By the time the song reaches “Oh, Satan, devour us all, hear our desperate call,” the surrender is explicit and communal, an invocation rather than a confession. Combined with the repeated Latin chorus, the track plays like a liturgy, and its cryptic references to biblical and mythological figures throughout reinforce that ritualistic, mystique-laden atmosphere 1. Read together, the song has been characterized as a metaphorical exploration of the human condition, its cryptic lyrics dramatizing the inner battles people face as a kind of infernal rite of passage 1.

Taken as a whole, “Per Aspera Ad Inferi” plays with the idea that resilience and transformation don’t always look like triumph; sometimes they look like giving in. The song’s central tension between struggle and surrender is exactly what makes its inversion of “through hardships to the stars” land, trading the promise of ascension for a knowing embrace of the fall 1.

Last updated 2026-08-13