I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net

eyehooks, and other tools of the art. A well-designed chamber that can allow
the dominant to quickly secure the submissive in the required position in a
matter of seconds – while also allowing for easy access to the implements of
erotic torture – can be preferable to improvising such arrangements under
less ideal circumstances.
The experienced left-hand path adept eventually learns to reach the
needed level of magically conducive consciousness anywhere and at any time
466
it is needed. Once this stage of development is arrived at, the magician can
dispense with the focusing device of a specifically appointed ritual chamber.
Similarly, experienced dominants and submissives will gradually come to
realize that they can perform their workings under any circumstances and
with great spontaneity, with the bare minimum of exterior props. Until then,
the carefully planned and aesthetically conceived dungeon can sometimes
provide a very useful training ground, allowing for deeper concentration on
the magical goals at hand.
Body Modification
We have already made passing reference to the modification of the
submissive's body during algolagniac ritual. The actual transformation of the
flesh during a working can sometimes mirror the transformation of the
submissive's consciousness, permanently anchoring a specific moment of
initiation – freeze-framing a moment of consciousness-change – in the living
temple of the initiate's organism. Body modification is particularly useful to
mark rites of passage. Very frequently, when a submissive first consents to
the dominance of another magician, a ritualized adjustment of the slave's
carnal vehicle can be appropriate, in the form of nipple rings, genital piercing,
branding, scarification, or tattoo. The attainment of a new state of being may
be marked by an appropriate alteration of the flesh.
Such adjustments of the physical vessel certainly have their symbolic
purpose for the magician but there is a more magically potent reason to
include body modification in the rites of dominance and submission. The
piercing of the flesh, especially in the body's erogenous zones, can produce
intense altered states of consciousness if done properly and with sufficient
expertise. This can allow the submissive to experience deep trance states,
pushing the overwhelmed body to visionary peaks. Those who have endured
such ordeals have reported such siddhis as communication with divine
intelligences, revelations of a profound self-transformative nature, as well as
clairvoyant and. clairaudient phenomena.
Piercing performed upon submissives already accustomed to altered
states of consciousness has even been known to activate all of the classic
manifestations associated with the classical kundalini experience: sensations
of an icy/burning flash coursing up the spine, the distinct feeling of internal
bodily "blockages" being freed up, and the bliss/horror of awakening
traditionally designated as the "opening of the third eye".
Another common result of traumatic body piercing and modification
has been the consciousness-expanding event known in traditional occult
circles as the "out of body experience" or "astral projection". We prefer not to
resort to this language but the value of the experience cannot be denied,
regardless of what terminology is used to describe it. Particularly, magicians
467
who have suspended themselves through nipple piercings, or willingly
subjected themselves to other extreme alterations of the body, have related
that they have watched their own suffering and lacerated physical shells as if
from a disembodied and detached perspective.
The experience of sensing that one's essential being and deepest level
of consciousness – the potentially immortal causal body – is something
separate from the mortal physical body is of great advantage to the adept.
Once the magician has seen his or her body though this disembodied