Magic acts, for most practitioners, BDSM is a transformative and mystical tool that affects one’s life and expands the field of experiences one can access. Indeed, it affect positively people’s psychological health, including healing and recovering from traumatic experiences. Pain needs to be distinguished from suffering which can be painless. Disintegrative pain disrupts the ego whereas integrative pain can strengthen and empower. Performative painful rituals can engender visionary experiences leading to experiences similar to out-of-body experiences for bottoms and intensely focused sense of power and high levels of energy. Both experiences are altered states of consciousness which Rudolf Otto described as numinous.

Summary

Magic practices are not just about concocting potions and evaluating which Sigil or ritual structure is more apt to a certain purpose. Magic also acts, for most practitioners, as a transformative and mystical tool that affects one’s life and expands the field of experiences one can access. BDSM and Kink have been, up until recently, neglected in the research that pertains to altered states of consciousness and the potential impact of these practices – employed as sacred tools – to aid the person’s spiritual, religious and esoteric journey.

Luckily, some fascinating papers are shedding a light on precisely this topic and this is what we’re covering in this episode.

Hello everyone, I’m Dr Angela Puca and welcome to my Symposium. I’m a PhD and a University Lecturer and this is your online resource for the academic study of Magick, Esotericism, Paganism and all things occult.

Today’s video is brought to you by the kind friend of the Symposium, Angry Abacus! Thank you so much for commissioning this video and I hope you find value in it!

BDSM is an acronym, variously interpreted around concepts such as Bondage, Domination, Submission, Sadism and Masochism. It can be described as consensual power or fetish play, often yet not necessarily sexual. Common terms in the community are Dominant or Dom and Submissive or Sub, to indicate who exerts the power and who willingly submits to it, Top and Bottom, referring to who gives and who receives the action – not necessarily in a power dynamic – and concepts such as Scene or Play that refer to the duration of the set of acts.

We already discussed the matter of BDSM in relation to religion with Dr Alison Robertson (Robertson, 2017) and in this episode, we will expand further on the academic literature surrounding the spiritual dimension of these practices.

Beginning with Durkheim, sociologists of religion have focused on the social dimension of religion; namely, what someone does as a result of their religious beliefs and how that affects the close community and society at large. With the advent of, not really a secular as much as a pluralist age, we can see better that the private dimension of religion is just as important and impactful on society as the group dynamics created by the more widespread and institutionalised religions.

As Fennel highlights, there is a common perception of BDSM as being sexual and nonspiritual in America, yet many of the activities that Americans label and usually stigmatise as BDSM are performed in religious ritual contexts across different societies, in some cases with no sense of implied sexuality or stigma of deviance. A small body of research has examined a few of these “extreme rituals,” such as the hook rituals of Mauritius, and found that both participants and witnesses in these rituals experienced major physiological and psychological effects’ (Fennell, 2018, p.1047).

It has indeed been reported in the literature, yet still not extensively studied, the beneficial impact that BDSM play can have on people’s psychological health, including healing and recovering from traumatic experiences or facing the difficulties of daily life.

Now, let’s address some of the experiential elements that emerge in a BDSM play, premising that a deeper reflection of them appears to be more prevalent among those who see these practices as going beyond sexual gratification – whether that’s defined as sacred, spiritual or framed in a more secular light.

The first one we’re going to address is Pain. Pain is the most familiar and universal element of human experience. Pain is a sensation linked to mental and cultural experiences and is often associated to an intellectual or emotional judgement. As Glucklich explains, all embodied experiences, including pain, are a mix of “biological facts and cultural consciousness, metaphors, emotions, attitudes.”(Glucklich, 2001, p.14; Charles D’Avalon, 2020).

Also, Pain needs to be distinguished from suffering. Suffering is not a physical sensation but an emotional and evaluative reaction to numerous causes, some of which are painless by themselves. (Glucklich, Sacred Pain, 11).

Charles D’Avalon and Glucklich argue in their papers that Pain can actually be a solution to suffering. Pain can indeed be a “psychological analgesic that removes anxiety, guilt, and even depression.” (Glucklich, Sacred Pain, 11)(Charles D’Avalon, 2020).

As Robertson explains in her doctoral research, “BDSM enables the exploration of weakness, of role reversal, of pain and humiliation or degradation as experiences in themselves rather than things to be overcome.”(Robertson, 2017, pp.249–250)

The “magical model of pain” is often entertained in BDSM and it perceives pain as an alchemical force “which magically transforms its victim from one state of existence to a higher, purer state.” (Glucklich, 2001, p.25) Here pain is seen as an essential element for transmuting one state of life into another, from limited states of consciousness and identity to other, broader identifications.

Interestingly, certain levels of pain possess analgesic qualities and can induce euphoric states related to the “reduction of psychological drives and the experience of dissociation or trance,” (Glucklich, Sacred Pain, 30) something that both anesthesiologists and neurologists are aware of and utilize.

States of consciousness and their manipulation are significant elements of both religious-mystical traditions – experienced by Mystics, Shamans, Meditators, and so on – as well as by the more secular BDSM practitioners.

There are two fundamental types of pain: disintegrative and integrative.

Disintegrative pain weakens or destroys the ego and disrupts the relationship of the ego with its lived world whereas Integrative pain strengthens the individual’s telos; their ego, sense of identity, sense of belonging within a community or connection with a god. In the latter case, the individual feels empowered by the sensations of the pain, including when this occurs as part of an initiation ritual.

In Glucklich’s words, “only religious language can describe how ‘bad’ pain becomes ‘good’ pain, though it is not only religion that brings about this transformation. Pain can act as a socially and spiritually integrative force that defines and broadens the individual’s sense of identity within the traditional community.” (Glucklich, Sacred Pain, 34). That could be a reason – or one of the reasons as to why – around the world and across different ages, religious people have scourged themselves, branded and pierced their bodies, sat in frozen rivers or endured high levels of heat. When it comes to pain, the goal of religious life is to “transform the pain that causes suffering into a pain that leads to insight, meaning, and even salvation.” (Glucklich, Sacred Pain, 40)(Charles D’Avalon, 2020).

Another element found in BDSM that may have religious implications and can aid magic practices is surrendering. In this case, it is a surrender of the self, of the mundane either to the larger, transcendent self or external power. This external power can indeed be a partner with whom there is a high degree of trust and a deep connection.

I found interesting the experience of a submissive informant reported in Baker’s study. She said,

‘…Anytime I have something show up, like, oh, oh you know, my body’s not good enough, or I’m not doing this right, and just surrendering and him pulling, and able to release that, and to just experiencing this ecstaticness, this, it, it’s like a mixture of sexual energy, primal energy, fear, love, connectedness, like all of those emotions tied up together … and because of the trust of him being in that role, I surrendered to that. And I surrendered to my own power of being capable of this.… And surrendering is an act of power to me because you have to… you have to be strong enough to let go of the fears, to let go of the stories of, you know, I’m not capable, I’m not good enough, or whatever it is, in order to surrender.”

(Baker, 2018, p.447)

Next, we have Visionary Experience.

Practitioners of BDSM can have visionary experiences, including seeing images, visualising energy or translating into images pre-verbal, pre-self-consciousness lived experiences that are difficult to express with language. There can also be an embodied sense of energetic force, that is the extrasensory perception of an external and vital energetic force is often experienced in combination with visionary perceptions.

Let’s also address in more detail the transcended states of consciousness that underpin and accompany the aforementioned experiences.

The most commonly mentioned are sub-space or bottom-space, experienced by submissives or bottoms, and Dom-space or Top-space, experienced by dominants or tops.

Sub-space or bottom-space is often described as leading to the perception of “diminished ego awareness, less active cognitive behaviour, surrendering of will” (p. 227). Whereas top-space or dom-space is described as leading to “intense focus, clarity of thought, a sense of extreme power or high energy” sometimes accompanied by a “feeling of distance and objectivity”. Another term reported in the literature is flying, defined as a “transcendent state of consciousness sometimes achieved during an SM scene” (p. 230). This state is marked, for bottoms, by feelings resembling out-of-body experiences and might include a psychic link with the dom.

In addition, the sense of a spiritual presence of something other.

All participants in Baker’s study reported they felt a sense of an external and spiritual presence. Baker likens it to what Rudolf Otto described as the Numinous, or an experience of the “wholly other.” Otto characterised the numinous as being entirely different from the experience of daily life, awe-inspiring, potentially frightful, fascinating, and wondrous. The experience of the numinous evokes a “sense of one’s own nothingness in contrast to its power.”

Last but not least, a deeply personal and lasting sense of meaning has been reported by informants in Baker’s study (Baker, 2018) and creating meaning and significance in own’s life is likely one of the scopes of lived religious endeavours.

Before we wrap this episode up, I wanted to say that I meant to include a discussion on BDSM in Paganism but I realised there would be so much to say that it might deserve a video on its own. If you’re interested in that, please, let me know in the comments.

Also, do let me know if any of the information provided in this video is useful – and in what ways – to your research or indeed spiritual/magical practice.

This is it for today’s video. Thank you again Angry Abacus for reaching out and commissioning a video on this topic. I really appreciate it and it really helps my project.

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