WTF is... Death Posture anyway?
Before we get into it, I have a little disclaimer:
Warning: Do not attempt this technique if you have serious physical or mental health problems. I take no responsibility for any damage this practice causes you. You have been warned.
So what the fuck is death posture anyway? You’ll hear lots of chaote’s throw the term around without much explanation. Simply put, it is a kind of alternate form of meditation. Of course, it is a little more complicated than that. Austin Osman Spare, the creator of death posture, defines it in the following way in his book “The Book of Pleasure”:
“Lying on your back lazily, the body expressing the condition of yawning, suspiring while conceiving by smiling, that is the idea of the posture. Forgetting time with those things which were essential-reflecting their meaninglessness, the moment is beyond time and its virtue has happened.
Standing on tip-toe, with the arms rigid, bound behind by the hands, clasped and straining the utmost, the neck stretched- breathing deeply and spasmodically, till giddy and sensation comes in gusts, gives exhaustion and capacity for the former.
Gazing at your reflection till it is blurred and you know not the gazer, close your eyes (this usually happens involuntarily) and visualize. The light (always an X in curious evolutions) that is seen should be held on to, never letting go, till the effort is forgotten, this gives a feeling of immensity (which sees a small form ), whose limit you cannot reach. This should be practised before experiencing the foregoing. The emotion that is felt is the knowledge which tells you why.”
So that’s all well and good, but lets put it into some more modern terms. This is the way that I do death posture. Keep in mind, this is just the way I do it, and there is not an “absolutely correct” way to do something in chaos magick. This is just the way it works for me. Feel free to change any of it to suit your personal needs.
1. Find a place where you won’t be interrupted for a while, preferably a nice, quiet dark room.
2. With your back to a wall, close your eyes (closing your eyes is not always necessary, depending on your goal) and stand on your toes. Lock your arms behind your back with your hands interlocked together. Arch your back and extend your neck as far as you can.
3. Your breathing will become/should become more labored and faster, bordering on hyperventilating. You’ll also start to feel tingly and exhausted. It will feel intense, so be prepared.
4. You will begin to feel incredibly uncomfortable, start hyperventilating, and your vision (if you keep your eyes open) will begin to blur, but stay locked in this pose for as long as it is possible.
5. Right before you collapse from the strain, you will enter a kind of altered mental state. At this point, you may feel like your floating, or like your muscles are on fire. While in this state, it will be possible to do certain acts of visualization. This is also when sigils can be charged, or an affirmation can be said.
6. Collapse to the floor and relax. Hopefully, you didn’t blackout, but it is possible. You will probably feel fairly strange but this is normal. Do whatever banishing ritual you feel necessary (I usually go with a laughter banishing, but it doesn’t really matter as long as it works for you) and then get up slowly so you don’t accidentally fall over and crack your head open.
So why the hell would you want to do this? It sounds pretty awful.
Well, yeah. It kind of is awful. That’s the point. I initially said that death posture was a kind of meditation, which is true in a sense. Claudio Naranjo once said:
“The word ‘meditation’ has been used to designate a variety of practices that differ enough from one another so that we may find trouble in defining what meditation is.“
Death posture exemplifies this, as it is meditation, just not in the sense of what we typically imagine meditation being. Like any form of meditation, the primary goal is to attain a state of gnosis (something I will cover more in depth in a later WTF is article), but in attaining this gnostic state, you then use it for a work, whether a sigil, spell, or whatever.
But wait, how do I use a mental state for spellcraft/sigil craft?
You’ll hear me often say this, echoing a bit from bluefluke‘s Psychonaut field manual, but visualization, visualization, visualization. You’ll need to hold the image of what your are trying to accomplish in your mind’s eye when the gnostic state is entered (and preferably for the entire duration of the instance of death posture.) I’ll cover different visualization techniques in a later article.
Thanks to enochtopus for suggesting I talk about this. I think I’ll do sigil magick next, then move on to gnosis and visualization.
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