Inside The Spirituality Of K-Pop Sensation BTS
The members of K-pop sensation BTS pose in the music video “Dynamite.”
(ANALYSIS) K-pop group BTS, sometimes called Bangtan Boys, is having its best year yet. The seven-member Korean boy band topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for many consecutive weeks, broke 13 Guinness World Records — hitting a total of 23 for the group — and visited the White House. BTS also hit a new peak on Spotify this year, with over 45 million monthly listeners, ranking No. 30 globally on the streaming platform.
The band draws on the spirituality of self-realization, psychology, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Greek mythology and more to create its fictional universe.
The band’s international fan base, dubbed ARMY, is drawn to the catchy beats and heartfelt lyrics — whether or not they understand the songs’ blend of Korean and English. K-pop as a whole had limited reach in the West until songs like “Gangnam Style” by South Korean artist PSY populated the cultural landscape, and BTS’ early career success is one of the reasons the genre is as popular internationally as it is today.
The band’s discography spins a fictional web, labeled the BTS Universe, that follows a group of high school friends named after the band members: Namjoon, Seokjin, Yoongi, Hoseok, Jimin, Taehyung and Jungkook.
Over time, the friends drift apart and face the hardships of reality. Tragic events occur to each character, which leads Seokjin to make a deal to turn back time to try and save the boys from tragedy and death. Seokjin fails time and time again, resulting in a time loop. Each boy continuously experiences hardships and chaos individually, which they must use to find themselves. This way, each boy finds their true self and Soekjin’s answer to saving everyone: the map of the soul.
The story is told through BTS’ official music videos, short films, highlight reels, song lyrics, diary entries called “The Notes”, the “Save Me” web cartoon, concert VCRs and mobile games like BTS World and BTS Universe Story. The story is not laid out plainly, and with pieces found in every bit of the content the group produces, it’s difficult to explain the story in its entirety. While the BTS Universe has been told for nine years, the group says it’s only the first chapter.
On June 14, on their 9th anniversary, the group announced they planned to take a break from releasing music. Before returning to chapter two, the group is focusing on their individual careers while still releasing content as a group and plan to perform for the free BTS, Yet To Come, in Busan concert for World Expo 2030 on Oct 15.
Psychology, spirituality and mythology are at the center of the universe. “Demian” by Hermann Hesse and “Jun’s Map of the Soul” by Murray Stein are two texts in particular that inspire the group’s journey to self discovery.
Embracing good and evil
BTS’ 2016 album “Wings” is heavily influenced and inspired by “Demian”, a novel by German poet and writer Herman Hesse.
Hesse focused on achieving self-realization in his work. He was a believer in theosophy, which claims God can be known through spiritual ecstasy and divine intuition. His work was influenced by Christianity, Buddhism, Indian culture and psychoanalysis.
“Demian” was Hesse’s 10th novel, largely containing influences of psychoanalysis and a multifaceted, spiritual view of God. The main character, Emil Sinclair, reflects on the seasons of his childhood that affected his life. In each timestamp, he finds elements of spirituality.
These include a retelling of the Cain and Abel story in the Bible, where Cain’s murder is seen as an awe-inspiring allusion to original sin in Genesis, the ancient god Abraxas and the battle between good and evil.
The BTS album “Wings” begins with the song “Blood, Sweat & Tears”, which serves as a summary for the connections between “Demian” and the BTS Universe story.
Each character also has an individual song on the album and accompanying short film that connects to a different season in Sinclair’s life.
All seven short films by BTS begin with an excerpt from “Demian” read in English by RM (Namjoon).
In the novel, Sinclair grows up in a Christian home surrounded by light and goodness. His parents are safe and loving, but even in his childhood he desires independence and rebellion — symbolized by a sparrow hawk that visits characters’ houses and later appears in Sinclair’s dreams. Sinclair forms a bond with Max Demian and uses him as a guiding figure in his search for truth.
Jungkook’s song “Begin” represents Sinclair’s childhood. Jungkook is the band’s youngest member, and in the BTS Universe his character represents youth. In the song, he sings about himself as “the 15-year-old … who didn’t have anything.” In the short film, Jungkook is seen dreaming of and holding a picture of the sparrow hawk.
Sinclair’s first encounter with evil comes when he steals a sack of apples from an orchard, then does more and more wrong to keep himself from getting caught.
Jimin’s BTS Universe character is traumatized by an incident he witnessed as a child in which an older man tied up a boy and presumably killed him. The event caused Jimin to develop seizures and remain in a hospital. In the short film for “Lie”, when doctors ask what happened, he lies and says he doesn’t know. This is Jimin’s first sin, represented in the film by an apple he eats.
Sinclair spends years in rebellion against the tenets of his childhood. While in boarding school, he becomes an alcoholic, focusing less on his studies in favor of spending most of his time at bars. After dreaming of the sparrow hawk, Sinclair determines it “was the first fissure in the columns that upheld (his) childhood, which every individual must destroy before he can become himself.”
Taehyung is commonly seen drawing graffiti and running from the police in his short film for “Stigma”. He has an abusive and alcoholic father but never fought back as a child. One day, Taehyung snaps and stabs his father repeatedly with a broken glass bottle until he dies, destroying his childhood and breaking free.
Sinclair one day passes by a church and enters when he hears the music. There he meets the organist Pistorius, who becomes his mentor and teaches him about the god Abraxas. Abraxas contains both divine and satanic elements; in this way, Pistorius says that Sinclair must embrace both the good and evil aspects of his personality to find his true self. This idea of embracing both good and evil is a key theme throughout the BTS Universe.
In the film for “First Love”, Yoongi plays the melody to “Begin” on the piano. Yoongi and Jungkook are bonded through a close mentorship in the universe and symbolize Pistorius and Sinclair, respectively.
Sinclair ultimately leaves Pistorius once he has grown into himself and realized Pistorius has limitations. He misplaces his sparrow hawk painting, then recalls a dream in which he burns the sparrow hawk painting and swallows the ashes.
In the film for “Reflection”, Namjoon does just that. He burns the sparrow hawk painting, puts the ashes in a glass and swallows them.
The object of Sinclair’s desires, whom he paints and calls Beatrice, is a woman he’s only met briefly — and who he later learns is Demian’s mother, Frau Eva. When they meet again, the two become very close, and she soon becomes another one of the people Sinclair is dependent upon.
In the BTS Universe, Hoseok’s mother abandoned him at an amusement park when he was young. He developed narcolepsy after that and was hospitalized. In the short film for “MAMA”, a doctor reveals that Hoseok does not have narcolepsy but rather Munchausen Syndrome. Still, he’s able to seek healing and a spiritual reconnection of sorts with his mother by the end of the film.
“Demian” concludes as Sinclair recalls his struggles from childhood to adulthood. His hardships are what lead him to the understanding of his true self. He accepts both good and evil, finding value in the relationships he had with his parents, Demian and others. At last, he is his own man.
Seokjin is very different from the other characters, as he’s tasked with saving each boy from their downfall. In the film for “Awake”, objects from the previous six short films represent the other members. Seokjin steps into a hallway covered with wallpaper containing the image of Abraxas. At the end of the hall is the framed painting of the sparrow hawk. Seokjin follows a light to the end of the hallway and walks out.
Seokjin finds a way to save himself and his friends by finding the map of the soul.
The map of the soul, the journey to the self
Jungian theory, created by Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist Carl Jung, separates the human mind (psyche) into the conscious and unconscious. A person must journey through the conscious and unconscious parts of the psyche through the process of individuation. Only then can they reach full self-realization. Jung studied the connection between psychology and religion through the Hermetic tradition and concluded that Christianity was a step in the historic process of the development of consciousness.
Jung’s model of the psyche is divided into three parts: persona, shadow and ego. Throughout the 2020 album “Map of the Soul: 7”, BTS takes listeners on a journey to the self.
The album begins with the song “Intro: Persona”. According to Jung’s model, the persona is an element of the conscious mind and the character an individual creates when they present themselves to the world. The danger with the persona is the act of overidentifying with the character and absorbing a false self.
BTS uses its music to tell both fictional and personal stories. “Intro: Persona” grapples with the idea of overidentifying with a stage persona, something the band is familiar with. The members are rewarded for their public personas, known by their stage names and their identity as K-pop idols. In the song, Namjoon the human being feels consumed by his role as RM, the leader of BTS.
Jung describes two sources of the persona: the expectations of society (including adherence to trends and religious tradition) and individual ambitions. In “Intro: Persona,” RM raps about how the public wants to know his stage persona, but he wants to show the public the real him.
He expressed a similar desire in his first speech at the United Nations in 2018.
“I’m Kim Namjoon, RM of BTS,” he said. “I’m a hip-hop idol and an artist from a small town in Korea. Like most people, I made many mistakes in my life. I have many faults and I have many fears, but I am going to embrace myself as hard as I can, and I’m starting to love myself, little by little.”
RM mentions the map of the soul in his lyrics when he raps, “Yeah maybe I have been deceiving myself / Maybe I’ve been lying / But I’m not embarrassed anymore / This is the map of my soul.”
The song “Jamais Vu” is about making a continuous cycle of mistakes. It’s named after a French expression that means “never seen” and is used in psychology to describe the experience of unfamiliarity with something that has been experienced before. In their live performance, Jungkook, Hoseok and Seokjin are wearing the exact same outfit and simply walk up and down the stairs in a circle one after the other — representing repetitive mistakes and larger narratives, like the time loop in the BTS Universe.
The song “Interlude: Shadow” marks a transition to the next core of Jungian belief. The shadow, according to Jung, is the sum of traits pushed back into unconsciousness because they’ve been deemed undesirable by others. The persona holds the power to repress the shadow.
In the song, Yoongi raps, “The life you chose, you achieved everything without regrets / And on top of that, you have a big house, big cars, big rings,” referencing his very first verse from BTS’ debut song that reads, “I want a big house, big cars and big rings.”
“Interlude: Shadow” contains the darker side of fame, too: “I run but the shadow follows, as dark as the light's intense / I'm afraid, flying high is terrifying / No one told me how lonely it is up here.”
BTS achieved idol status, but it came at the cost of fear and loneliness.
The song “Filter” further continues with these ideas of Yoongi struggling with his shadow in the BTS Universe story line as Jimin sings of hiding undesired aspects of the self. Yoongi pushes his friends away because he believes he hurts the people closest to him. Yoongi is overcome by his shadow and ultimately attempts suicide by lighting his room on fire.
Jungian theory suggests that the shadow must become part of the conscious personality to connect the three parts of the psyche.
The song “UGH!” is about anger, a characteristic of the shadow. The band’s rap line expresses that the members have come closer to accepting their shadow but dislike when undesired aspects of the self, such as anger, hurt others. The battle is resolved in “00:00”, where the group’s vocal line expresses that happiness is the outcome of acceptance.
The song “Outro: Ego”, dedicated to memory and showcasing snippets from BTS’ debut to the present, marks the album’s final Jungian philosophy.
In “Jung’s Map of the Soul,” Stein writes that the ego is the most central part of human consciousness. It is the organizer of thoughts, intuitions, feelings, sensations and memories that are not repressed in the subconscious. Jung also suggests that without the ego, life becomes questionable. An individual’s ego originates in infancy and remains fundamentally the same throughout their lifetime.
The song “Inner Child” reflects the ego’s unchanging core. In the song, Taehyung sings, “The smiling kid, the child who was always laughing brightly / When I see you like that, I can’t help smiling.”
“Outro: Ego” is then the complete journey of Hoseok’s recognition of his persona and acceptance of his shadow, finally enabling him to move on to the future with confidence. In doing so, he has reached Jung’s goal of individualization.
“Map of the Soul: 7” takes listeners on a long and messy journey to the self. Through each stage of life, individuals come to realize and accept the person they are, will be and always have been.
This journey of acceptance is an ongoing one for BTS that’s aided primarily by the support of their fans.
More recently: Greek mythology and Eastern religion
The members are slightly embarrassed about their early years, both from past mockery and the reminder of younger versions of themselves.
In the 2016 music video “EPILOGUE: Young Forever”, the band gets lost in a maze. A Mandala — used in both Buddhist and Hindu traditions to guide viewers to their true nature — awaits them in the center, the artistic representation of the awareness of an individual’s purpose.
In “Young Forever,” BTS sings, “While standing on this empty stage, I become afraid of this unpleasant emptiness / Within my suffocating feelings.”
The band is fearful of emptiness and loneliness if the fans lose interest in its performance, but the members continue chasing after their dream and hope for a bright future.
Over the course of the “Outro: Ego” music video, Hoseok becomes a myriad of different gods: Odin, the Norse god of war; Mithras, the Iranian god of the sun; Jupiter, the Roman god of thunder; and Rah, the ancient Egyptian god of the sun.
The same imagery is implied in the Melon Music Awards 2019 performance of “Dionysus.” The grand seven-minute performance was set in ancient Greece. Each member performed individually to songs from their entire discography, each representing a different Greek god.
The 2020 animated music video for “We are Bulletproof: the Eternal” begins with RM in the light looking at the reflection of his debut self in the dark. The first part of the video shows the members struggling to survive — but when RM is drowning in the water, he is brought to the surface following purple lights.
The color purple is representative of the BTS Army; the band often tells its fans “We purple you” to express the long-lasting nature of their love and appreciation.
In the music video, the members run through their discography as iconic settings from their music videos fill the backdrop.
Then, finally, they exit a maze.
On the song “Pandora’s Box” from his 2022 solo album “Jack in the Box”, Hoseok explains that he wants to be a source of hope for the other members of BTS and the world. The song takes its name from the Greek myth of the box Zeus gave to Pandora. After Pandora released evil into the world upon opening the box, what remained was hope for humanity.
As BTS’ growth continues, the band members trust their fans to support them and help them seek acceptance for their exciting future and their slightly embarrassing past.
In the BTS Universe, Seokjin found the map of the soul with the love he had for his friends. BTS found the map of the soul with the love and support from its Army.
Myrian Garcia is a student at The King’s College majoring in Journalism, Culture and Society. She is participating in the New York City Semester in Journalism Program, where she previously interned at the daily amNY.