Fakir’s Spirit+Flesh group energy pull and ritual
in Minneapolis, June 2004.

So What’s an Energy Pull?

I first experienced the “energy pull” when I was only about twelve years old (way back in 1942). Being the weird kid that I was, I had already discovered I could pierce needles and pins through my body with impunity — that I could get into a head space where I was a mere witness to cold steel passing through my flesh. In this state of mind I was removed from physical sensation, what the rest of the world called “pain”. But after I had pierced myself, there was no further sensation. Only a static needle stuck through me. It did not hurt. I couldn’t feel it. It was just there.

So wanting to expand my emotional experience, I soon learned to tie a small string around the needle and pull on it. I could pull gently and gradually increase the tension. I was in control of how fast and how much sensation I was receiving. Soon I learned to tie the string to a hook in the wall and pull back against it. I loved doing this and it became a regular practice for me. Every time I did this, I experienced a sweet rush of energy. At this time in my early life, I didn’t analyze what I was doing or try to rationalize it. I just enjoyed it.

In my teens, I lived in libraries (there was no internet for another forty years) and I devoured books. I was very curious to know more about the practice of piercing and pulling. I didn’t take long before I found out that what I was experiencing in my secret basement hideaway was not unique. Piercing and pulling was, in fact, a very ancient and honored practice in several cultures. I learned that in Savite Hindu Culture, they had been doing this kind of body ritual for at least 3,000 years. For them it was a technique for trancing, going beyond the body, leaving the body and allowing the body to be temporarily possessed by higher spirits and archetypes (like Murugan, Lord of Piercing). It was not a display of strength or macho or stoicism or an entertainment. It was the seeking of “a state of grace”.

Even closer to home for me (because I grew up on Indian lands in South Dakota only a few miles from Indian ritual grounds) was the Native American pierce-and-pull ritual called the “Sun Dance”. I didn’t need to study books to learn more about that practice! I had some first hand access to the stories and tales of Native American elders in my own community. I listened to them in the flicker of kerosene lamps as they talked in hushed tones about the glories of the “old days” when Sun Dance was the way to the Great White Spirit. Of course when I was a boy, the ritual had long been made illegal for Native Americans and they could be put in prison if caught secretly doing a Sun Dance. My heart ached for them to be denied the practice of one of their most sacred rites! I guess so far we Modern Primitives are very lucky that what we do has not been made, in most cases, a prisionable offense!

“It’s not how hard you pull, but how long…”

That phrase was a mantra used by Ogallala Sioux medicine men when they were instructing young men before doing a Sun Dance. What most contemporary hook pullers do not seem to understand about this practice is the complex interaction between body and spirit. When one does an “energy pull”, one is manipulating and rearranging the connections between body and spirit. Sure there are physical and chemical changes like the release of the body’s natural opiates, the endorphins. But there is more to it than that. At first there is the sweet rush, euphoria. Some of you know how that feels. But if the pull is prolonged, in concert with strong shamanic intent, there can also be intense visions, healing, travels to unseen worlds, going to core and touching the void. A few of you may have even gotten there. It is not about “trucking” or “tugs of war”.

Since the revival of the Sun Dance in modern times (starting in the 1970s), many of the Native American elders who direct the energy pull called the Sun Dance have noticed and bitterly commented on the conflict they see in some young dancers between traditional Native and Western European values. Western culture, with its focus on competition and individuality, clashes with traditional values of surrender, patience, group energy and letting go of ego. In some recent Sun Dances, young dancers were seen to compete with each other about how hard they could pull, how fast they could break free, how quickly they could be done with the dance. In the old days, a Sun Dance was frequently arranged so whatever the dancer was tethered to could only bend and resist the pulling. Breaking free of the piercing(s) was made impossible. The length of time one could pull against piercings was the truest measure of worth and devotion — and a great way to reach unseen worlds.

Left: 1830’s George Catlin drawing: prolonged energy pull by Ogalala Sioux against a springy sapling. Right: Fakir does three-hour energy pull during 1982 Wyoming Sun Dance and O-Kee-Pa ceremonies seen in the Dances DVD.

Any meaningful energy pull is not about pain, macho, testosterone or stoicism. It is rather a way of slowly increasing and prolonging the tension until one enters an altered state. In traditional Native American Sun Dances, pulling on piercings was not minutes or even hours, but often days. I personally know several recent Sun Dance pledgers who were pierced and pulled for four days! In Penang Malaysia I saw devotees who pulled on their multiple back hooks from five in the morning till eight at night — 15 hours! In my own experience (see the Dances Sacred & Profane DVD) Jim Ward and I pulled for some three hours before opting to break free. As the Ogalala medicine man said, “It’s not how hard you pull, but how long”. That is what makes the difference between a momentary thrill and a truly memorable and life transforming experience.

Tamil Hindus do day-long energy pulls from multiple hooks. Photos taken by Fakir during the 1995 Thaipusam Festival in Penang, Malaysia.

Opening Fourth Chakras

This brings me to the chapter in my life that began about 1987. Until that time, it was inconceivable to me that anyone else, except Jim Ward, might want to try what I was doing. My first volunteer was my life partner, Cleo. She had lost many friends and lovers in the AIDS epidemic that had begun in the early 1980s. She was filled with grief and heart-centered pain. So at her request, I made a ritual out of piercing her upper chest and back — then attaching balls to tug and pull with every movement. She danced for hours up and down a dusty path on a hillside in Northern California. On each side of the path we had placed stakes with photos of sick fiends, dying friends and those who had passed beyond the veil. She cried. I cried. And we both felt a release of heart-centered pain and grief at the end of the afternoon. I called that ritual a “Ball Dance”. It was then I began to realize the therapeutic effect of tugging and pulling on piercings, especially in the fourth (heart) chakra.

Over the following years, we repeated our piercing rituals and introduced them to many others in the subculture. In 1990, a group of us “ball dancers” got ridiculed and laughed at during the first gathering of Black Leather Wings. Some of the Leather Daddies present dismissed our ritual as a silly and trivial event. A few years later, we met with greater acceptance in Dallas, Texas where Allen Falkner hosted a large “Ball Dance” event that even got mentioned in the newspapers.

During the 1990s, I started experimenting with hooks in the chest (fourth chakra) instead of lighter piercings with attached balls or limes. I found them far more effective in opening the fourth chakra and releasing “stuck” energy. So beginning in 1996, I introduced the “hook pull” to various groups of seekers in the subculture.

Group energy pulls during day-long BLW rituals in Northern California, 2003/2004

Over the next nine years, the practice of pulling on flesh hooks spread from my first groups of only five or six people to the large number of hook pullers you can now see in the photos posted on BME. However, there is a difference between the hook pullers you see in photos on my Spirit + Flesh web site, and I suspect, most of those in the BME photos. In our shamanically-directed hook pulls we are very conscious of chakras — those important energy centers related to the body that open, close, and change energy flow in both our psychic and physical world. Of all the chakras, the fourth one, the heart chakra, is the most screwed up in our culture. It is the gateway from lower consciousness (survival, self, base emotions) to higher consciousness (love, clear mental activity, inclusiveness, selflessness). If it is blocked and full of crap, we live in world of confusion and misery. We live primarily as victims and make bad decisions. Read some writings of Caroline Myss for more on this. Actually, I wish we could compel our U.S. politicians (especially you-know-who) to participate in a shamanic hook pull and then send them to Caroline Myss.

With this insight, and what I feel was a strong nudge from my Patron Saint Lord Murugan (Hindu Lord of piercing and opening up), we have been doing public Sprit + Flesh Workshops & Rituals for about five years now — with repeat rituals in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Phoenix and Minneapolis. My partner and I consider these workshops and rituals a humane and needed service more than a vocation. Obviously, we still focus on opening the fourth chakra, and sometimes chakras above number four. But I don’t see much point in doing knee or elbow pulls because there are no chakras there to open, close or manipulate.

Trance states and the opening of heart chakras was the intent and purpose of group energy pulls in this 2004 Minneapolis Spirit+Flesh ritual. See my web site at fakir.org for participant feedback.

Cleo, My Partner in Spirit + Flesh Rituals Says:

“I have been doing this ritual many times now. Every time it has been a different journey. The whole exploration for me is about altered states, a heightened state, energy, fire (yes it can be really hot), and visions. Most especially if I am pulling alone against a stationary object with my eyes closed. Any awareness of others or spectators quickly disappears. It is a personal dance of ecstatic fire, bright or soft. I went several times to a place that is not a place. Beautiful!”

“My last hook pull ritual was like wringing my heart from its grief. During the second stage it was a very sexy, a big energy exchange with my puller/lover. The third phase was fun and releasing as I pulled in a big circle with other dancers. You connect intimately with friends, lovers and even strangers pulling on your cords, tuning in to each other, experiencing group energy in a ceremonial tribal ring. At the end I was laughing and very high in this pool of energy and fantastic live drumming.

”

In the second part of SPIRIT+FLESH: THE ENERGY PULL, I would like to take you on a guided tour of some of the more memorable experiences we’ve have had, even in our next ritual which is only one week away in San Francisco. I’ll include some more photos and also feedback comments from energy pull participants. And if hook pulls must be entertainment, at least they can be “art” as my friends Vaughn and Joey Wyman of Body Manipulations did a few years ago. We’ll get into that and more in my next column.

Yours for safe and enlightened journeys,

Fakir Musafar
fakir at bodyplay dot com

Fakir Musafar is the undisputed father of the Modern Primitives movement and through his work over the past 50 years with PFIQ, Gauntlet, Body Play, and more, he has been one of the key figures in bringing body modification out of the closet in an enlightened and aware fashion. For much more information on Fakir and the subjects discussed in this column, be sure to check out his website at www.bodyplay.com. While you’re there you should consider whipping out your PayPal account and getting yourself a signed copy of his amazing book, SPIRIT AND FLESH (now). Copyright © 2005 BMEzine.com LLC Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published February 25th, 2005 by BMEzine.com LLC from Los Angeles, CA, USA.

TRIP TO HEAVEN, HELL OR SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN OR BEYOND

In my last column I wrote about the history and origins of flesh suspensions and energy pulls, about some of the customs and rituals of other cultures from which we are just now rediscovering a special kind of magic. I wrote of a boy in South Dakota who was “set on fire” when he first learned of these body rites. Now I continue the path of discovery of that specific boy. Me.

In societies where suspensions by piercings are part of a spiritual tradition, these intense acts are intended to lead one to a transformative experience – an ecstatic state, a dissociation from the body where consciousness is free to explore unseen dimensions of life. It is at the same time a release into one’s own private heaven or hell, then if you are lucky, an escape from that limited state to a special kind of consciousness beyond ego. A universal spacetime shared by all. Suspension by piercings is not a toy. It is not a plaything. As some contemporary suspendees have already learned, when it is attempted as an act of bravado or show of stoicism, it can often lead to a very unpleasant and unrewarding experience. The unseen worlds do not open up. All that’s left when it’s finished are scars and a few rolls of film. For some with an impoverished ego, that may be enough. No problem. But for me it has to be more.

By the time I was ready to try a serious, long-lasting O-Kee-Pa style suspension, I had already learned to dissociate from my body and had experienced leaving it consciously (see “Against the Coal Bin Wall” in Body Play Number 4). By a series of increasingly intense and prolonged body rituals over a twenty year period, the “boy” had prepared himself for a truly significant inner experience.

FAKIR’S JOURNEY TO THE WHITE LIGHT

It began in 1962. I was thirty-two. Fate had allowed me to visit Japan. A very unlikely place for this journey to begin since my roots were on the plains of South Dakota where the mysteries of the O-Kee-Pa suspension had actually taken place a hundred years prior. In the Kanda bookseller’s section of Tokyo, I found a lost book that very few people had seen for nearly a hundred years: George Catlins’s original volume, “O-KEE-PA, A Religious Ceremony of the Mandans“. I opened the red Morocco leather and gold gilded cover. This was a rare original book published in London by Trubner & Co., Paternoster Row in 1867!! I held it in my hands and leafed through its pages. My heart pounded and my whole body began to shake. There it was, Catlin’s color lithos of young Mandan boys suspended by two piercings. How had this treasure gotten to Japan? Perhaps as a gift to some Japanese dignitary by the British, or in a missionary’s trunk? Who knows? My chances of finding this rarity were one-in-a-million, probably more. That day some force greater than myself seems to have directed me to my path up the mountain. My path to the Mandan’s White Light!

The bookseller, not knowing the rarity of this book, sold it to me for thirty dollars. Now I had an ancient guide to my destination and I lived with it constantly for the next year. The descriptions of the ceremony and the crude but vivid Catlin drawings sketched on-the-spot etched themselves into my consciousness. Only one thing mattered: I had to do the O-Kee-Pa!! But there were no living humans I knew who could show me the way. To the best of my knowledge, none of the few remaining Mandan (ninety five percent of them had been wiped out by a smallpox epidemic, a gift from the white man, in the winter of 1832) had ever done this rite in my lifetime. And I had lived among them. I was on my own and my sole guide had to be the same larger force that had mysteriously drawn me to that book on a hot August day in Tokyo, Japan.

By July 1963, I was ready for my first attempt. In the attic room of a small house in Palo Alto, California, I screwed up my courage and began the piercings. I was not prepared to pierce myself in quite the style of the Mandans – cutting deep incisions in my chest and inserting plugs. So I was guided to make deep piercings through my entire breast area, in as much flesh as I could gather up. I used some wire clamps I had made to hold the gathered-up skin in place. The piercings themselves were made by slowly screwing a long 1/16″ thick stainless wire through each breast with yet another home made device, a screw piercer (see photo). As the blunt wire tip slowly forced it’s way through my body (it took several hours to make each piercing), I went into a light trance. At this point I was glad I had fasted for two days, made other physical and mental preparations, and had opted for slow piercing.

Left: For my first O-Kee-Pa suspension in 1963 I slowly screwed long wires deep through each breast with the homemade piercing device resting on my lap in this photo. Wires were made into loops for the hanging. Right: In my 1963 attempt, I lowered myself from a stack of books until I hung free for several minutes. I proved my living flesh was strong enough to be safely suspended by wires.

The sensation of the slow piercing was intense but bearable. Then, not having anyone to help me, I stood on a pile of books beneath a suspension frame I had made in advance. I gradually let my weight (140 pounds then) be “taken” by the piercings. I had to be very cautious. As the Mandans had learned, and Catlin mentioned in his O-Kee-Pa book, one can only hang by two piercings in the chest for about twenty minutes. After that, strangulation begins and one can quickly die!

Somehow suspension from dual piercings in the back does not cause the same physical effect and one can hang for much longer periods.

Over the next thirty minutes I managed to kick one after another of the books from under my feet. At last I was standing on tiptoes with about 80% of my weight on the piercings. My breathing was shallow and forced. The pain was intense to the point where I didn’t think I could continue. I had “gone out of my mind” and all that existed in the universe was the glowing fire in my heart center. At that moment, I tripped my remote camera, stepped off the last book almost unconsciously and swung free. The pain stopped and I started to drift off. I knew I had to come back pronto or I would be gone forever. So I struggled mightily to get my feet back on a solid surface. I had done it, even if for only three or four minutes! I was glowing, radiant and absolutely obsessed to try again.

My next attempt was a year later, in March 1964. I went through even more demanding preparations this time – I knew what to expect. I pierced my chest again with the same kind of wires which had proven, in 1963, to be large enough to support seventy pounds each without damage or tearing. In 1963 I learned a lesson about how tough living skin really is: it proved to be ten time stronger than dead skin (leather) and extremely plastic. This time I took even longer putting my entire weight on the piercings, perhaps an hour or more. I really wasn’t aware of time when I did these suspensions. This time I was prepared for the intense fire that would burn in my chest when I stepped free. And I was determined to hang as long as I felt I could stay conscious and regain control. I really didn’t want to die… yet!

I desperately longed for a Ka-See-Ka (physical and psychic guide of the Mandans), someone to help me and watch over me so I could totally let go and not be responsible for anything including my life. Finally I did swing free for a second time. I did manage to trip my remote camera again (see photo below). And again start to drift into that pleasant warm space I had experienced when I was lashed against the coal bin wall some twelve years before. This time I hung suspended for about ten minutes and don’t really remember how I got down, or who was watching over me to keep me from harm’s way. But some how I did escape and was more determined than ever to try again with a Ka-See-Ka. And then hang for as long as it would take to enter the unseen worlds and it’s potential transformations.

The next year, 1965, I met merchant seaman and tattoo artist Davy Jones who eventually put the large blackwork tattoo I had always wanted on my back and hips. He had lived among tribal people in the Pacific; he had been ritually tattooed in Western Samoa. We developed a close friendship and spiritual connection while making my “magic mark”. I developed a deep trust in his integrity and he expressed an interest in fulfilling the role or protector and Ka-See-Ka in my next O-Kee-pa suspension. But I had to wait another two years because in 1966 I mistakenly married a woman who really didn’t understand my spiritual quest or support my unusual explorations. She preferred not to be around during body rituals.

By April 1967, I was aching to accept Davy Jones’ offer to help in an “all out”; chest suspension. Nothing would stand in my way. So I gave my wife my car keys, a credit card, and $300; she drove to Palm Springs for the weekend. Again, I spent several days preparing myself for the ordeal to follow, the total “letting go” I desired. I signed a letter to Davy Jones releasing him from all liability and responsibility in case something happened (like serious injury or death). He liked that. The evening before the suspension, he arrived along with Joe, a sympathetic friend who agreed to make an 8mm movie as documentation. No still photos would be taken. I stayed up all night fasting in tight constrictions and other deprivations. I wanted to start a light trance and dissociation from my body before the piercing.

By 6:00 AM the next morning I was ready. In a calm and deliberate way I pierced my own chest for a third time. The energy from Davy and his friend watching was supportive and comforting as I rather quickly screwed the wire rods through my breasts. There was no real pain this time; my body wanted the penetration. The flesh just seemed to part on its own and let the wires pass through. Beautiful. I felt empowered by this. We made loops in the wires, bound the ends and attached a short rope between them. Then I told Davy I was ready for my suspension. Single file we went out into the bright, crisp morning light in the yard and then into the dark and empty garage building prepared for the ritual. The interior atmosphere was similar to a reconstructed Mandan lodge I had visited in North Dakota years before.

I stood on a tall black box in the center of the large room. Davy connected the rope between my piercings to another one dangling from the beams above. Both Davy and Joe gently pulled slack from the suspension rope. I felt increasing pressure in my chest. I was slightly on tiptoe when they stopped. A wonderful feeling swept through me – waves of tingling. This was different than the last time. I relaxed into the feeling. For a long time I stood very still in the silence and darkness. My mind was letting go. My attention focused on feelings and sensations. As we had prearranged, I was to say “UP” whenever I was ready to continue. I said “UP“. Ropes creaked and slipped sending vibrations into my piercings. I threw my head back, felt myself being inched upward until I was on my toes again.

Fire came into my heart center as I let myself sag down onto the piercings. I struggled for breath. But I soon relaxed into some comfortable shallow breathing, small pants. More stillness and adjusting. I started to drift away. I was a little blob of consciousness now, just observing body sensations no matter how intense. And the observer was somewhere remote from the body. I said “UP” again to see what would happen. Instantly I zoomed back to full awareness of body sensations, pain. More stillness, patience and adjusting until I was again safely detached. On the fourth “UP” I reached my limits. With almost all of my body weight on the piercings, I had to make my last conscious decision: give up or swing free!

Photos made from 8mm movie frames exposed during my 1967 journey to the White Light. No still pictures were taken. Hand in top photo belongs to Davy Jones who slowly rotated my body during the twenty-minute suspension.

I hadn’t come this far to give up. I plunged off the cliff and swung clear of the box which was immediately taken away so I couldn’t change my mind. I was floating in a vast sea of vibrations and vibrant colors. Uncaring with no identity, no memories, no body. Since my head was back when I swung free, I was looking up. And there it was at the end of a short dark tunnel, a great shimmering ball of white light!! It radiated intense waves of love like I’d never felt before. This incredible love was directed at me – personal and totally non-judgmental, unconditional, accepting. I passionately wanted to be swallowed up by that Light. In rapid telepathic communication, the Light spoke. It said: “Hello. I’m you and you are Me. And I’m as close to God as you’ll ever be. I am the One who made you and I am the One who will take you back. I brought you here. Remember the book? I am always here to guide you regardless of the form in which you see me“.

I asked the Light, “Do you always appear like this?” “No,” it replied, “I appear in any form you think I can appear“. Again I asked a question, “Is there only one of you?” The Light shimmered again and answered. “Of course not. Everyone has a White Light, but all of us are One. And One of us is powerful enough to create or destroy a world or universe. Let me show you“. I cannot describe what happened then. I was led on a fantastic tour of things made and not made and music that accompanies it all into a Divine Order.

I pleaded with the Light to embrace me. It said no, do not come closer. If I was embraced, I could not go back. The Light told me I had to return to my body and work through it until my task was finished. What task? The next thing I knew, I was back in the darkened garage laying on the floor with Davy Jones and Joe by my side. They said I had hung deathlike for twenty minutes. The experience was truly “transformative”. My life was markedly different from that day forward. I was a battery on “Full Charge” and didn’t have to sleep for the next 72 hours. My mind was ultra clear and all my physical functions seemed to have been enhanced.

Left: In my solo 1964 suspension, I hung by dual piercings for ten minutes. Right: For my fifth O-Kee-Pa suspension in 1976, I hung from permanent deep chest piercings I had made several years prior. Iron hooks are 3/8″ thick.

Thirty-seven years later, the Light is still there just above my head. It’s my guide, my guru, my protector and my benefactor for everything I need to finish my task. In Part II of this column I will continue with my next series of suspension adventures and the journeys of others I have pierced and coached as a “Ka-See-Ka”. It will include accounts and photos of both horizontal and vertical suspensions that have had a profound influence on people’s lives.

Yours for safe and enlightened body rites,

Fakir Musafar
fakir at bodyplay dot com

Fakir Musafar is the undisputed father of the Modern Primitives movement and through his work over the past 50 years with PFIQ, Gauntlet, Body Play, and more, he has been one of the key figures in bringing body modification out of the closet in an enlightened and aware fashion. For much more information on Fakir and the subjects discussed in this column, be sure to check out his website at www.bodyplay.com. While you’re there you should consider whipping out your PayPal account and getting yourself a signed copy of his amazing book, SPIRIT AND FLESH (now). Copyright (C) 2005 BMEzine.com LLC Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published January 15th, 2005 by BMEzine.com LLC in Tweed, Ontario, Canada.

FAKIR VS. STELARC, THE LISBON FACE-OFF

I was delighted that Shannon was able to catch up with the elusive Stelarc recently at the TransVision 2004 Conference. I was even more thrilled that he was able to make a video interview, and further, that Stelarc remembered our televised Festival Atlantico confrontation in 1997. You see, I had long been a rabid Stelarc fan since I first saw his 1985 book “Obsolete Body Suspensions”. I had tried in vain to contact him first in Japan and later in Australia. I never got a reply to the many questions I had about the “whys” and “wherefores” of his suspensions. To me, they were imaginative and an extreme visual turn-on. And since I had already done a number of my own suspensions (including several O-Kee-Pa’s), I felt his must have taken him somewhere in the unseen worlds. But he never mentioned this in any of his books, films, or writings.

So we were both booked to perform in Lisbon. Now he could not avoid me! The first time we met face-to-face in the festival gallery, Stelarc was charming, funny, and highly respectful of “Fakir”. He had also heard of me. I was in awe of him and he seemed to be in awe of me. The festival director arranged for a lengthy television interview and debate, in English, for the European TV networks. Now I had my chance, on public media, to ask all those old questions!

Well, he dodged and danced claiming all his suspensions were merely “works of art” and did not go to any erotic or esoteric turf. No masochism. No “unseen worlds”. He said they were only one step in his attempt to explore and improve what he thought was a poorly designed machine. His goal was to become a “Cyberman”, part flesh and part machine. A scientifically improved body. On the other hand, I told him that for me body suspensions were part of a greater ritual that allowed me to bridge the gap between spirit and body — and that for me body was already a great and marvelous creation. I suggested that in his suspensions he may have been at the door to “unseen worlds” but perhaps was afraid to go through. He didn’t seem to like that suggestion! So we parted in total disagreement, but friends. If you would like the full story of our confrontation, go to my site and order a copy of BODY PLAY #16.

Stelarc (Mr. Cyberman) and Fakir (Mr. Organic) as they faced-off in Lisbon.

SHAMANIC SUSPENSION RETREAT

This summer I took a ten-day vacation in the magnificent Northern California mountains between the coastal valleys and Pacific Ocean. Luckily, I have a piercing and suspension loving friend who owns 200 acres of isolated prime wilderness there. On this land’s hilltop, in absolute stillness except for nature’s birds and breezes, I had a vision: devotees swinging in the twisted branches of an indigenous oak forest. What an exceptional place for unhurried shamanic rituals, rituals for those who want an organic suspension experience. The vibes of this California hilltop equaled or exceeded any of the traditional ritual locations I have visited in Wyoming, South Dakota, or Southeast Asia. And it is only a three-hour drive from San Francisco! Better yet, it is only a few miles from my favorite hot springs spa which is also owned by friends. My mind started churning.

Over the next few days I scouted the location, asked questions and found that the nearby hot springs had just built an isolated group building to house fourteen to twenty people. It has a private kitchen, dining area, bath and community space used primarily for tantra and yoga classes. Wow! What a great combination this would be for an exclusive Shamanic Suspension Retreat in the summer of 2005. Now, dear adventure seeking friends, those who have expressed a desire for a more organic and nature-driven suspension, would you be interested in participating in such a retreat? Numbers would be limited. The retreat could be anywhere from two to four days. Devotees could participate in teams of three or four. Everyone gets a turn. Shamanic and medical guidance would be available, including the energy of Fakir and several other skilled psychic and physical guides.

If you long for this type of experience, please write me a private email. I have been in touch with a number of you since my last column, especially those few of you who have tried a true O-Kee-Pa style suspension from two chest piercings. Some of you have had mechanical difficulties with it. From your pictures, I have spotted a few problems, chief of which are:

1. Chest piercings too high on the chest, too superficial, and in a place where the skin is very thin and not strong enough to bear your weight. Remember, if you weigh 160 pounds, each piercing must bear 80 pounds!
2. Piercings not made exactly across the grain of the skin which causes ripping, bleeding, and the entrance of air pockets into the skin as it separates from the extreme weight it must bear.
3. Not enough deep tissue in the piercings (lack of enough tissue volume again causes ripping and air pockets). Please note, bigger hooks or other hardware does not compensate for lack of strength in long superficial piercings in the upper chest. My advice: lower the piercings into the breast area where the grain of the skin is more horizontal and you can get a substantial amount of subcutaneous tissue in the piercings by piercing more vertically. See pictures of my O-Kee-Pa suspensions as a guide.

I’ve also been studying lots of BME pictures of horizontal suspensions (some people call them “Coma” and “Superman”). Again, from my own experiences I see several mechanical problems that can create disruptive and unpleasant sensations that interfere with trancing or prolonged suspension. These are:

1. Too few hooks and hook location that does not allow uniform distribution of body weight. I try to plan hook location so each hook bears about the same amount of weight (between five and seven pounds).
2. Not enough hooks located over the heaviest sections of the body. For example: over the hips, buttocks and upper thighs and over the upper chest. I suppose modesty is preventing some of you from placing hooks in strategic supportive positions. Yes? Forget modesty. Take some cloths off!
3. Suspension cords or ropes with lack of “spring” or elasticity that makes your lift-offs very quick, sharp and painful. I find that bungie cord loops permit a gentle lift-off that is easier to adjust to. The worst thing I ever did was try a Sun Dance with steel cables that had no stretch. Not fun.

Indigenous oak forest in Northern California coastal mountains.	Group lodge at hot springs spa nearby the oak suspension forest.	Horizontal hook suspension with bungie cords (click to zoom).

SWIMMING WITH DOLPHINS
A Spiritual Suspension in Austin Texas (Reprinted from BODYPLAY #16)

Experience text by Beth Basar
Photographs by Dan McCollum

Long after my return from Lisbon in 1997, I received a letter from my dear shaman friend Bear in Austin, Texas. He told me he had been continuing his practice of facilitating body suspensions for those who sincerely desired the experience of journeying to unseen worlds and inner space. He wrote that he had just completed just such a journey, an outdoors shamanic suspension, with a young woman, Beth Basar.

The whole event was beautifully photographed by Dan McCollum. And even better, afterwards Beth had written about the journey and her subsequent feelings. I have long cherished this account and photographic documentation. It stands out as a prime example of what is available to us if we go about a suspension with integrity and clear intent. Bear, Beth, her husband, and Dan McCollum were kind enough to offer to share this magical event with those who wanted to know more about a spiritually-oriented suspension. In her own words, here is Beth’s account:

Dolphin Journey

On August 16, I was involved in an outdoor suspension. It was the most incredible journey of my life and this is my story. I had read about suspensions before and had been intrigued by them. Almost a year ago I had the exciting opportunity to actually see a suspension for the first time. Ever since then I knew it was something I would one day do.

It was a perfect night for an outdoor suspension, warm with a gentle breeze and almost full moon. The suspension took place in my backyard on a beautiful old oak tree. It was lit with artificial lighting so everyone involved in the suspension could see what they were doing and so photographs could be taken. Before the suspension everyone present, including myself, was smudged with a sage smudge stick to purify all energies present and take away all negative energies. The oak tree from which I was to be suspended from was also smudged and blessed.

Bear, my guide and piercer, and his assistants were wonderful to me. They would tell me step-by-step what they were doing and why, so that I would not be surprised. After cleansing my body and marking it with ink to show where the piercings would go, they began piercing me, the first step on the way to my journey. One person on each side of me, piercing in tandem.

Once all 20 hooks were in and the clips were in place, they started threading cords through the clips and started tightening them. The first time they lowered the gurney from under me, I felt light-headed as if I were about to pass out. Bear raised the gurney under me again and loosened all of the cords. He then asked me if I wished to continue. I said yes. He started tightening the cords again at a little bit slower pace, letting me get used to the pressure and tightness before tightening them more. Then the moment came to lower the gurney again, little-by-little until I was free from the gurney and suspended only by the cords on the tree and the hooks in my body.

What an incredible feeling, the energy from all my friends watching was enormous. I felt so free and at peace. I would just close my eyes, listen to the music and fly. The breeze would gently sway my back and forth which would heighten all of my sensations.

I felt someone put their hands on mine. I opened my eyes and there kneeling in front of me was my husband George with tears streaming down his face. George knew that being suspended was something I wanted to do for a long time, and I knew it brought joy to him knowing I was doing something I had dreamed of doing for a year now. He sat there for a few moments, told me he loved me and told me to have a wonderful journey; and what a wonderful journey I did have!

One part of my journey led me to swimming with two dolphins, one on each side of me. I should actually say flying with dolphins for there was no water around us. But I could hear water running, like a waterfall somewhere near us, but could not see it. Every so often, Bear would gently sway me back and forth. This was such a surreal feeling it would take me further along my path.

While on my dolphin journey, my “big brother” Sam came up and gently touched my side and told me how beautiful I was and that I was flying with the Gods. My journey with dolphins may be due to receiving two gifts involving dolphins from two separate people right before the suspension. One was a bracelet with a dolphin on it and the other was a dolphin pendant both of which I wore during the suspension. Neither person giving me the gift knew anything of the other person giving me a gift involving a dolphin. So was it coincidence or fate that I should swim with dolphins? I have no idea how long I was on what I call the dolphin journey. I just know it was an amazing journey. During the suspension I had absolutely no concept of time.

After returning from my dolphin journey I returned to my physical plane and opened my eyes. Sitting on the ground in front of me were my two guardians, my husband and my “big brother” Sam. They were both sitting there holding each other looking over me. I motioned for them both to come closer to me. They did, each taking one of my hands. I looked at them and told them what a beautiful experience I was having and how glad I was that I was suspended outside. We all three started shedding tears. For me it was both tears of sadness and joy. There were tears of sadness because I wanted so much for both of them to feel and experience the happiness I was feeling. Yet there were tears of joy because the two men I cared about most were there to witness and support me as I continued my journey. I can’t say if their tears were tears of joy or sadness. Based on the energy being given off, which was very powerful, I would say they were tears of joy. We all three stayed there, connected to each other — smiling, laughing and crying. After they both went back to sit down, I continued my journey.

I closed my eyes, concentrated on the music (playing in the background) and let whatever was going to happen next happen. My next path took me further away into the land of the beyond. I felt I was flying with the Gods. Even through I was in a place far away in an unknown and unfamiliar land, I never felt afraid or worried. Instead, I felt very much at peace and free from all worries. It felt as if there was a protective orb surrounding me; it was very spiritual for me.

When I would open my eyes I would see the ground and it seemed many miles below me. But in reality was only a few feet below me. It was unbelievable, as if I were many miles away looking down on myself and everyone around me. Again I closed my eyes and continued my journey with the Gods. I eventually returned to earth for a bit, and before continuing the journey, all lights used to light the scene were turned off and it was only moon light shinning through the old oak illuminating the ground around me. Once again I closed my eyes and started flying, not as high this time but just as wonderful. With only the moon light caressing the ground, everything seemed more powerful. I was one with all my surroundings; one with the tree I was suspended from. It was an incredible feeling. After slowly coming back to earth I just lay there for a few moments appreciating all of my friends who witnessed my journey and their powerful energies, the beautiful oak tree from which I was suspended, the beauty of being able to be suspended outdoors, the music being played and everything that made that magical night possible.

I then motioned to George to come near me and told him I was ready to come down. Slowly, Bear and his assistants put the gurney underneath me and raised it up to me. They proceeded to remove the cords and clips, then the hooks from my body one-by-one. When I got off the gurney and first attempted to walk on the ground it was a very strange feeling. Gravity and trying to walk on the ground just didn’t feel right after flying so long.

My journey in suspension lasted one and one-half hour and was by far the most powerful, spiritual and beautiful event I have ever experienced. It was truly an experience like no other. I feel like a different person having returned from my journey. I feel I am a stronger person and have more inner peace now. It was truly a wonderful and magical experience for me. I was so charged from the suspension that I did not sleep for almost 36 hours. I will never look at that oak tree standing in my backyard the same again.

Beth A. Basar

Beth Basar suspended from the branch of an oak tree in Austin, Texas by shaman Bear who guided her on her magical journey.	Beth flies with the Gods and sees the earth and others at a distance.	As Beth journeys, her husband George kneels before her, tears in his eyes.

In my next column, I will depart for a bit from suspensions and try to acquaint BME devotees with the deeper and more magical aspects of what we have been calling “Energy Pulls”. This is something both Fakir and his partner Cléo have been bringing to cities all over the U.S. and Canada for the past two years in our day-long SPIRIT+FLESH workshops. They loved them in Washington D.C. (twice), Minneapolis (twice), Los Angeles, San Francisco (twice), and next we go to Vancouver B.C. and New Orleans. How about your city?

Yours for safe and enlightened journeys,

Fakir Musafar
fakir at bodyplay dot com

Fakir Musafar is the undisputed father of the Modern Primitives movement and through his work over the past 50 years with PFIQ, Gauntlet, Body Play, and more, he has been one of the key figures in bringing body modification out of the closet in an enlightened and aware fashion. For much more information on Fakir and the subjects discussed in this column, be sure to check out his website at www.bodyplay.com. While you’re there you should consider whipping out your PayPal account and getting yourself a signed copy of his amazing book, SPIRIT AND FLESH (now). Copyright © 2004 BMEzine.com LLC Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published September 29th, 2004 by BMEzine.com LLC in Tweed, Ontario, Canada.

In the past few months I’ve become aware that many others (photos, stories) beside me have tried and succeeded in being suspended vertically by two piercings in the chest — in essence, doing O-Kee-Pa the hard way.

I’ve seen your photos on the BME site. But I am not quite sure you had the depth of experience the Mandans (or I) had. Please tell me. I’ve sent feelers out to several suspension groups, but so far gotten no feedback. As the guy who kind of started all this in the first place (by example and photos) I truly feel responsible for what happens to you. I am very eager to hear from you if you have ever done an O-Kee-Pa style suspension. How long did you hang? Under what circumstances? Where did you go? What were the after effects? Please send Fakir an email about your experience.

Most of the suspensions I have facilitated and witnessed during the past thirty years resulted in unusual and often fantastic out-of-the-body adventures. One of the most interesting was that of a Catholic woman, Sharon C., who pleaded with me for several years to facilitate her suspension and be her shaman Ka-See-Ka guide/protector. Ten years ago, we made it happen. About seventy of us were gathered in Northern California at a place called Kenton Mine. We were there for two weeks so there was plenty of time to prepare for a special ritual. Since I had hung horizontally for long periods of time in years prior, we decided that a horizontal suspension by multiple piercings was the best way for Sharon to have the prolonged experience she desired. We wanted at least several hours up. Back then, none of us had ever heard of or tried doing this with modified fish hooks. That came several years later. So we settled on piercing the front side of her body with 22 long sterile piano wire loops as I had done several times.

On a sunny afternoon in a deep canyon filled with redwood trees, I pierced her body with the wires, bent them into loops and attached them to the frame I had devised for my own suspensions. The tribe assembled. We beat drums, burned sage, and chanted for beneficial spirits to guide Sharon on her journey. Slowly we inched her pierced body up off the mats on which it laid. Up under the branches of the thousand year old sacred Redwood Tree which seemed to murmur, “let me take this body to its source.” We were hushed and within several minutes, Sharon left her body. It was inanimate “meat” hanging high in the air beneath the branches of the tree.

While suspended in a thousand year old redwood tree for several hours, Sharon C. went on a guided trip to her own private heaven and hell.

As the Ka-See-Ka who assumed responsibility for her journey, I was able to see what she saw in her disconnected state. First, she traveled to her private hell (a barren place with no signs of life) and them to her private heaven. I was able to communicate with her lifeless body, and, most unusual, she was able to speak through it! When lost in despair in her “hell” space, I suggested she turn around, look over her shoulder, and see what was behind her. There it was, her private heaven: a verdant forest filled with trees, birds, flowers, and fuzzy buffalos who smiled and wanted to play with her. I told Sharon she could fly and should go down and circle the forest below. She did and soon rested in a comfortable nest in the top of a tree. I told her she could go play with the animals below if she wanted.

“But they are smelly and dirty,” she said.

“That’s ok,” I told her. “You don’t have to step in their shit. You can fly now so just go down and fly above their heads.”

Sharon giggled and I saw her do this and tease the animals as she flew over them. There were many other odd adventures during her journey but finally, as she despaired for company, a luminous being who appeared as an animated blue infinity symbol, spoke to her and then buried itself deep in her heart center. It said to her, “Peace… Be Still”.

But this is not the end of the chapter and book for Sharon. The memory and lesson it held stayed with her to the end. Two years ago, Sharon developed ever worsening kidney failure. On dialysis, she felt the time had come to leave her body permanently. She called me. She was glowing, happy, radiant, as she announced her decision to disconnect from machines. She was not frightened of passing over into the unseen world. She had been there before. Sharon thanked me for my love and guidance. And she parted this world joyously.

JOURNEYS OF OTHER SEEKERS

Another dear friend of mine, Puma (see Body Play #9), had undergone a severe personal crisis in which he had been taken over by an extremely self-destructive (read suicidal) dark side, the “shadow side” which we all have. He went on barely functioning and seemingly headed for a bitter end. A year later, still troubled, he asked me to hang him up by two deep chest piercings. He pleaded to do the O-Kee-Pa seriously and privately so he could resolve this on-going power struggle with the negative energy that was controlling his life. This was to be an attempt to chase the “shadow” away once and for all.

In the absolute quiet of an indoor chamber, Puma was compelled to engage in a long and painful combat (his private hell) before he could let go and surrender; submit his mind and body to what was actually a “shamanic death”. He groaned and fought to stay in conscious control as I slowly inched his body upward against the chest piercings. When he finally let go, suspended, he appeared to be physically dead. His lover pleaded with me to let him down. But I saw Puma’s other electric body shape floating weightless and smiling at me from a remote corner of the room. He was ok. So I let his physical body hang motionless for another ten minutes.

When I finally let Puma’s lifeless form down, just as light flickered back into his eyes, I saw the “shadow” inside them screaming in agony. A voice behind these fiery eyes seemed to say, “If this is what you are going to do to me, I’ll leave!”

Woosh!

And within ten minutes the Puma we know and loved was back in those eyes — exhausted, happy and free. Characteristic of a truly transformative experience, the effect lingers on years later. Puma told me just a few days ago, “I’ll never forget what happened. This was a truly spiritual experience for me and I continue to draw strength from it every day.”

But not every suspension ends with such beneficial results as Sharon’s and Puma’s. Sometimes things go sour when our expectations or approach to the suspension is off-key. I have attended a bunch of these and that is why I am so fussy about having clear intent, inner guidance, and not being swayed by ego when I am advising or helping someone do a suspension. Several suspensions that went wrong come to mind as I write this column. The first was done several years ago by Idexa, the San Francisco tattoo artist. I asked her to write about her vertical suspension that went wrong for Body Play magazine. In her own words, here is what she wrote for Body Play #14:

My last trip on a spiritual path, in early 1995, consisted of borrowed and modified rituals of other cultures. I did a vertical suspension by flesh hooks. Raelyn Gallina did the piercing and suspended me by elastic cords.

The original plan was to have a small private gathering. But it eventually became a huge event with about a hundred people, mainly women. It took place at night in a big building and in that setting I just couldn’t visualize enough to break through the ceiling and roof — where in past body rites trees and birds have helped me to travel. I liked the sensation of hooks going under my skin (except for the ones below my breasts). I loved stepping off the ladder to hang by my flesh. It was a wonderful challenge and a body high.

But with so many people around, and the scattered energy in such a limited space, I really didn’t get to have the visions I was hoping for. What I see today in many of these borrowed rituals is a lot of “white people” doing it as entertainment, even money, for a bunch of spectators. It (suspensions) being so popular, so obviously a “white thing” (non-traditional), has opened my eyes. I feel the movement is taking part in a continuing genocide of indigenous cultures that started here with Columbus.

Idexa

Above: Idexa is pierced and rigged for her vertical suspension by Raelyn Gallina. Right: Idexa steps off short ladder and hangs freely, but her ability to journey is hindered by physical and psychic distractions.

Another “sour” suspension I witnessed in the last few years was Paul Stolz’s first attempt to do an O-Kee-Pa. On previous occasions I had seen him do several horizontal suspensions facilitated by Vaughn of Body Manipulations. These were sweet — no problems (read the description that follows). But, apparently overcome with self-confidence by them, he decided it would be “no sweat” to hang by two piercings in the chest like I had done. He talked to me several weeks prior.

I warned that this would be different, many magnitudes harder and could not be done without surrendering ego. I told him that after about one minute he would have to go through all the symptoms of drowning or suffocating. Was he ready for that? I asked if he wanted me to “Ka-See-Ka” him. “No, just come and witness,” he said.

So that’s what I did. No rescue offered.

The suspension got off to a good start. Joey Wyman did an expert, shamanic job of piercing two hooks in Paul’s chest, deep and just above the nipples. He took the piercings with a stoic smile. With the same bravado, he stood on a platform dressed in tight black pants and silver boots. This was his moment of glory. He motioned for Vaughn to lift him up with the vertical crane to which he was fastened. Up he went clear to the ceiling. But, as I had warned, the stoic smile and bravado only lasted about two minutes. Then Paul was in obvious distress. His breathing became difficult, rapid. He panicked. His arms flailed about wildly as he gave Vaughn the prearranged signal to bring him down immediately. Paul lay limp on the floor in shock, eyes glazed and pupils dilated. He didn’t quite know where he was or what had happed in those few brief minutes. They helped him upstairs and laid him on a bed like a rag doll. I sat by his side for half an hour moving energy and bringing him back to center. He was ill for about a week. I understand Paul has said the O-Kee-Pa was harder than he ever imagined and he will never try it again.

PAUL FLIES LIKE A BIRD

Unlike his negative experience above, Paul has also had his magical suspensions too. Not everyone has a “White Light” experience like Fakir. There seems to be a different “trip” each time and for each person. Sometimes it is only a heightened sense of body awareness made possible by dissociation (the observer state). And sometimes the strongest effects of a suspension are only felt hours, days, or weeks after the experience. And sometimes nothing much happens except an unusual or adverse set of body sensations because of unfavorable physical or psychic conditions (like with Idexa or Paul above).

Paul Stolz belongs to a group of Modern Primitive explorers. I first met Paul in 1996. Paul invited me to his first “flying suspension” in which he would be moved about freely in three axis by a 3-ton crane inside a huge warehouse building. He knew very little about traditional body suspensions like the O-Kee-Pa of the Mandans or Chidi Mari suspensions of the Hindus. I asked about his intentions, his expectations. He was unclear about them. Seemed like he was satisfied just to do something new, novel, experimental. He wanted to “fly”. Ok, that was a good enough reason. So on evening of March 22, I went to the San Francisco warehouse which had been converted into a performance and play space called The Sand Box (the floor was ankle deep in beach sand).

Left: Paul Stolz is pierced and rigged by Vaughn and Joey Wyman for a “flying” horizontal suspension.  Right: Paul is zoomed up and down, back and forth, and rotated by Vaughn inside a huge warehouse space. I felt “electric” rain falling from his suspended body.

I entered just as Paul was being lifted up in a horizontal, face-up suspension by multiple hooks. As he floated twenty feet above our heads, then gently moved about the cavernous space by Vaughn, it felt like “electric rain” was showering down on me from his suspended body. There were only a few friends present. The general feeling in the space was peaceful, tingling. Paul was on a trip and in an altered state. The suspension lasted for about an hour. In his own words, here is Paul’s account of his Sandbox suspension (from Body Play #14):

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to fly. I have dreamt of finding myself between planes of reality. I thought that in that “space” I could get a clearer view, a better perspective of myself and its reality. Once that view has taught me something, I can continue on my quest for my dreams.

Now I have found ways to slip into that alternate plane where possibilities are limitless. I call that place “Dreamland”. I got there mainly by using my physical self, my body. It usually requires some sort of pain or challenge.

I have wanted to do a full body suspension for four years. I thought the sensation against my body must be amazingly different than anything I could ever feel. Still, a full body suspension could be even more for me if I could fly — move around once I am off the ground. In fact, a non-mobile suspension seemed a little lacking to me. On March 22, 1996, I held a live performance in which I hung horizontally from a mobile 3-ton crane. The crane was driven by Vaughn (Body Manipulations body piercing studio) who also worked with Joey Wyman to put the hooks in and hang me. Vaughn drove me out above and throughout audience (about 25). I went way up to the ceiling, low to the ground. I was spun around, rocked back and forth and bounced up and down.

The combination of flying and the sensation of my skin pulling evenly through me was overwhelming. I had gotten to the most amazing version of “Dreamland”. The tension altered in intensity levels with the different movements we would try. I had found that, in fact, the sensations were completely adjustable based on far off the ground I was, what direction I was moving, or even the speed of the movement.

To me this was a very spiritual event but not a very religious one. I gained more contact with myself and my reality. I used my physical body as a tool to enter my psychological and spiritual self. Once I opened doors to this “Dreamland”. Other dreams found in day-to-day life have fallen into place. I find that as I continue exploring my reality in relations to “Dreamland”, my real life becomes more and more charmed.

Paul Stolz

So here are just a few examples and accounts of what has happened to contemporary seekers who have experienced suspensions. How about yours? There are so many experiences I wish to share with you that there will have to be a Part 3 and maybe even a Part 4 to this edition of Fakir Rants & Raves. See you next time for “Swimming With Dolphins” and more.

Yours for safe and enlightened body rites,

Fakir Musafar
fakir at bodyplay dot com

Fakir Musafar is the undisputed father of the Modern Primitives movement and through his work over the past 50 years with PFIQ, Gauntlet, Body Play, and more, he has been one of the key figures in bringing body modification out of the closet in an enlightened and aware fashion. For much more information on Fakir and the subjects discussed in this column, be sure to check out his website at www.bodyplay.com. While you’re there you should consider whipping out your PayPal account and getting yourself a signed copy of his amazing book, SPIRIT AND FLESH (now). Copyright © 2004 BMEzine.com LLC Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published May 8th, 2004 by BMEzine.com LLC in Tweed, Ontario, Canada.

Early photos of Savite Hindu devotees during Chidi Mari Festival in South India (Madras, 1920’s). After hooks are pierced in the back, the devotee climbs a high tower where he (or she) is lifted into free air by a horizontal pole and slowly rotated.

One photo in particular attracted his attention. In a 1920’s issue he saw photos of young men and women in India with hooks pierced through their flesh hanging fully suspended by their flesh from a rotating cross arm high in the air. Why did they do this, he wondered? How could they do this? What did this feel like? What did it do to you? Several years later, the boy found some descriptions and drawings of Native Americans who also pierced their flesh and either pulled for hours against deep piercings or hung suspended by them.

Discovery of these Native American rituals rang many bells for the boy since many of these rituals had taken place in the same physical space in South Dakota he now occupied, and only about fifty years prior. Following a psychic trail on his bicycle, he found several places where Lakota, Arikira and Sissiton peoples had pierced their flesh and pulled against it. The vibes were still there beneath the rustle of cottonwood leaves on the trees from which they pulled and hung.

The feeling left in these places was infectious. The boy was intoxicated by it. He had to try this himself. In fact, he felt like he had done this before. That boy was me. He has since tried these body rituals many times. Now some fifty years later, in 2003, he finds himself in a strange new world — one where many others have also felt the urge to pierce their flesh and either pull against it or be suspended by it. However, some of these explorers seem to think they’ve just invented the wheel and want some kind of patent on it to claim ownership. So now we’ve got “Superman” and “Coma” suspensions and other new names that just didn’t exist in the world of the people who originated these rituals. But that is ok as long as some credit and honor is paid to the people who came before and showed the way — as long as the inner “magic” and “sacred space” belonging to these rituals is not forgotten or ignored.

ORIGINS & BELIEFS

The practice of piercing the flesh then pulling or hanging by pierced body parts is not a new custom. It has been a part of Hindu Culture in Southern India (Tamil Nadu) for thousands of years, nearly as long among the Sufi of the Middle East, and for hundreds of years as a part of religious ceremonies of Native Americans. It is, until recently, an alien and forbidden custom in mainstream Western Cultures. What useful purpose could this custom have? Why would anybody deliberately choose to “mutilate” their flesh and “suffer” thus? A huge conflict exists between Western Culture and those where such piercing rites are honored and encouraged.

The core of this conflict centers around different cultural beliefs about the body. Who does your body belong to? A distant God who has strict rules about what you can do with it? Or to a Priest or other intermediary of this real or imaginary divinity? Does your body belong to a father or mother? Or to a husband or spouse? Or to the state or a social order or tribe? Does anyone besides you have the right to decide what you can or cannot do with your body? Or does it simply belong to you the one who lives inside?

In those cultures where piercing ceremonies have developed, the attitude is pretty much universal: your body belongs to you, and in the appropriate ritual, it has been given to you to explore the full dimensions of your being. In Western Cultures of the late 20th Century, some of these alien beliefs have replaced old Judeo-Christian ones. Since the 1970’s the widespread practice, acceptance and popularity of body modification definitely says, “My body belongs to me!” However, like many customs and practices that originated in other cultures and were transplanted here, only part of the messsage seems to have been transmitted. For example, the art of tattooing was brought to Europe from the South Pacific by sailors and early explorers. In Somoa and the Marquesas, the custom of tattooing was a very sacred and special rite: “the making of a magic mark”. It was an initiation, a rite of passage, and meant to transform forever the one who bore it. The early sailors brought back the technique to make the mark — but failed to bring back the magic. So soon European tattooing became a mere novelty: marks that don’t wash off, a status symbol of sailors and outcasts. The meaningful and magical geometric designs of the originators were replaced with the only kind of graphic Europeans understood: crude representational pictures or words. The magic and purpose of the originators had been lost in translation.

In most cases, I feel the same thing has happened to the suspensions and related piercing experiences a lot of people are doing today. They are often being done for sheer novelty, attention, and ego satisfaction. I feel very strongly that if one borrows a custom from another culture, it is your obligation to respect and understand, as best possible, the significance and mystery of the practice. Otherwise, it can easily fall into darkness or misuse and undesirable consequences or spiritual degradation can result.

However, at the same time, I feel everybody has a right to do what they will with their body even if it is for sheer exhibitionism. But they should be aware they are missing the full potential and magical significance of the act.

SAVITE HINDU & SUFI PRACTICES

The oldest recorded history of piercing the body and pulling on or hanging by the piercings goes back perhaps five thousand years to the earliest cultures of India. In this great period of human development in the East, the concepts of Hinduism including the various yogic disciplines, understanding of energy centers (chakras), tantra and the Kama Sutra were born. The body/spirit connection was especially explored, and the ability to attain different states of consciousness was both sought after and revered. The idea of “using the body to transcend body” played an important role in religious and everyday life.

Two major Hindu Festivals are especially focused on body piercing rituals: Thaipusam in January/February and Chidi Mari in May/June. Both festivals are celebrated primarily by Savite Hindus (devotees of Lord Siva, Muruga, Murugan, Subramanya, the Great Mother Mari and Kali). Other Hindus, like the followers of Vishnu or Krishna, do not usually practice body rituals or employ body piercing in their religious practice. In fact, they often hold these rites in contempt. The Savites are mostly the dark-skinned Tamil people of Southern India (Tamil Nadu) and direct descendents of the original indigenous peoples of India. Their Tamil language used in the chants of their “Pujas” (worship) is the spoken equivalent of the ancient written language of Sanskrit. Historically, the Tamil peoples have been persecuted for hundreds of years. First by the light-skinned Northern Indians, descendents of Aryan invaders, then by the British colonialists who hauled them off as virtual slaves to work on tea plantations in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and other parts of the British Empire. Wherever they’ve been taken by force, the Tamil people have been remarkably successful in preserving their culture and spiritual practices. Something similar is now happening with the culture of Tibet.

Above, L-R: Thaipusam hook-swinger in Ceyon in the 1930’s (Is this Superman?), recent Hindu rituals in Melacca (West Malaysia), and Kavarti at the Sivananda Ashram in Val Morin (a man suspends from a rig on a pickup truck). Below: Group rituals at the Sivananda Ashram.

As public festivals, both the Thaipusam and Chidi Mari have been effectively outlawed in India and Sri Lanka. Too barbaric. But in other parts of Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia and Thailand, these “torture festivals” still flourish. The Chidi Mari Festival is devoted to worship of the “Great Mother” (Mari) and other female deities like Kali. Devotees are often pierced by two hooks in the back, suspended on the end of a long pole and rotated high in the air. Others are pierced with multiple hooks and suspended horizontally for long periods of time (two to six hours). All this done to attain a “State of Grace” (ecstatic trance) in which the Great Mother possesses their bodies and bestows enlightenment and blessings on them and their families.

Thaipusam is a piercing festival to Lord Siva and especially the Hindu dieties who are “Stars in His Crown”: Muruga, Murugan, Subramanya, Skanda, Ganapati. Devotees vow to bear a gift to the deity (archtype) under physical hardship. This is considered the purest of gifts — the offering of one’s own body pierced with spears, skewers or hooks as it delivers the gift. This is “Worship Through the Body” and such a gift is especially accepted and blessed by such deities (archetypes) as Murugan, Lord of Piercing and patron Saint of the Tamils. When I witnessed the Thaipusam in Penang Malaysia in 1995, I felt the reality of the sacrificial energy released. It was overpowering, intoxicating, sweet, and very similar to the energy that I have experienced at many of the body suspension and hook pulling rituals I have facilitated or witnessed in recent years.

This same energy has historically been a part of Sufi body piercing rituals dating back hundreds of years. In case you don’t know, Sufi is a fusion of ancient Hebrew, Hindu, and Islamic beliefs and practices with emphasis on individual “gnosis”, that is “direct knowing” by means of altered states. Sufi sects that still practice piercing rituals, dervish dancing, and other trance rites are not accepted by mainstream Islam and have been forced underground except in the United States and a few other Western cultures. I even know of one of them in Marin County, California! One of my ardent pro body piercers learned Arabic and was attached to that group. My namesake, the original Fakir Musafar, was a 12th Century Sufi mystic from Meshed, Persia (Iran) who for sixteen years had six daggers embedded in his chest and back plus six horseshoes suspended from twelve permanent piercings in his shoulders and arms. Musafar’s message was much the same as mine: one can access the unseen worlds and find the source of being through the body. Legend has it Musafar was ridiculed for his bizarre practices and that he died of a broken heart because his message went unheard. In many ways, I feel the hand of Musafar and the energy of Murugan in what I have been doing for some fifty years. I also feel the Spirit of the Modern Primitive is an extension of that same ancient and timeless energy.

NATIVE AMERICAN PRACTICES

Catlin’s 1800’s painting of O-Kee-Pa: A Religious Cermony of the Mandan. This art is scanned directly from the original litho page in his 1867 book published by Trubner & Co., London. A precious find, this original leather bound copy belongs to Fakir!

Strange as it may seem, the practice of piercing the body and ritually pulling or suspending it to achieve some kind of union with divine powers developed quite independently on the North American continent. The exact time frame is unknown since there are no written records left by these tribal peoples — only verbal records and stories told to Europeans in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. The most significant chronicler of these customs was George Catlin, an Englishman who lived among the Mandan people in the 1830’s and both wrote and painted descriptions of their body rituals. The Mandan, who were not hunters and gatherers, lived in villages and cities along the Missouri River in what is now South and North Dakota. The primary Mandan suspension ritual was called the O-Kee-Pa. It was both a rite of passage for all young men and also a repeated practice for a vision-seeking shaman. Mandan legend says the practice was given to them by a white man who came down from a mountain in ancient times.

After many days of fasting and extreme ordeals, Mandan young men who were about to become adults and enter adult life were pierced twice in the chest and twice in the back. Under the guidance of an older man who had taken this journey before, often many times (called a Ka-See-Ka meaning guide), they were suspended by either set of piercings from the roof of a lodge. In extreme pain, followed by trance, the young men were hung up for about twenty minutes to seek communion with “The Great White Spirit”. Legend has it that initiates traveled out of their bodies in this state and were guided through unseen worlds by their Ka-See-Ka who knew the way. The O-Kee-Pa journey was like a canoe trip on a tricky river: the initiate submitted and just rode in the canoe while the Ka-See-Ka steered it to appropriate vistas and to avoid rocks. Through the years, neighboring tribes, especially the Arikara and Minnetaree, were exposed to the Mandan ritual and developed their own piercing rites, often more severe.

Various Sioux (generic French word used for all tribal peoples living in this area) tribes like the Lakota, Ogalala, Teton and Yellow Hand also adopted or developed shamanic piercing rites — chief of which is called the Sun Dance in which pledgers are pierced once or twice in the chest, fastened to a tree or pole and vow to pull against the piercings until the flesh breaks. Again, the object is to enter an extraordinary state and meet an animal ally or the “Great White Spirit” — either as communion, healing or to obtain special knowledge. The most serious initiates and experienced dancers gained great respect and awe for how long they could pull against the piercings without breaking free. Sometimes this would be several days.

Wonderfully accurate movie reenactments of the O-Kee-Pa and Sun Dance can be seen in the Richard Harris films “Man Called Horse” and “Return of the Man Called Horse”. A documentary film of a real modern day Sun Dance and O-Kee-Pa style suspension can be seen in the film “Dances Sacred & Profane” shot in Wyoming with Jim Ward and Fakir as initiates. When this film was released on videotape it was called “Bizarre Rituals”. Watch my web site for a new tape to be released soon with the last thirty minutes of the “Dances” film plus a short profile of Fakir produced by French filmmakers and Canal+ for European distribution.

Yours for safe and enlightened body rites,

Fakir Musafar
fakir at bodyplay dot com

In my next column, SUPENSIONS & TENSIONS: TODAY, I will bring these practices to contemporary times with accounts of my own experiences and the experiences of others. I also wish to alert those who currently do piercing rituals with large hooks of a new and recent danger: MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylcoccus Aureus), a staph infection that is resistant to all current forms of antibiotics. It is real. It is here and I recently had to deal with a case that required two open-heart surgeries! It is easily transmitted by mere physical contact. It is then called CA (community acquire) MRSA. More on this new danger in my next column.

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Fakir Musafar is the undisputed father of the Modern Primitives movement and through his work over the past 50 years with PFIQ, Gauntlet, Body Play, and more, he has been one of the key figures in bringing body modification out of the closet in an enlightened and aware fashion. For much more information on Fakir and the subjects discussed in this column, be sure to check out his website at www.bodyplay.com. While you’re there you should consider whipping out your PayPal account and getting yourself a signed copy of his amazing book, SPIRIT AND FLESH (now). Copyright © 2003 BMEzine.com LLC Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published November 15th, 2003 by BMEzine.com LLC in Tweed, Ontario, Canada.